Campus Life and Other Happenings

Dear Walter Advice Column

September 4, 2018

Editor’s Note: Art of Peace Club members tackled this sad story in their meeting September 4th. All members send strong empathy to this mom and son! Club members considered various problem-solving actions that could be used in the future to promote peaceful activity here at Reed. Do you have a story you would like to share with us? Email to djv4258@lausd.net or drop off in Ms. Vodhanel’s mail box (SLC Office) in the school Main Office.

Dear Walter,

My son picked up his first box of chocolates to sell today after school. He sold 2 boxes to friends at YS and then tried to fit the box with the remaining candy in his backpack while he was on the field playing football. Due to the size of the box he was unable to zip his backpack and used a friend’s lunch box to try and conceal it. Sadly, the box was stolen along with the money (only $4.00). I just wanted to make someone aware of what happened. I don’t expect to recover anything and I will pay the $60.00 for the chocolate but again, I wanted to mention what happened.

Sincerely,

Sad Mom

Dear Sad Mom,

I would speak up! Ask an adult or some friends to help you look or explain and try to find the person who took it and stand up for yourself. Your friends will always help you. — Ruby’21

I would suggest keeping the chocolate in your son’s locker if you take it to school. But maybe sell door-to-door, or somewhere besides school. — Peace’21

First of all, thank you for mentioning it! Just by reading this I am more aware, and would never steal someone else’ chocolate. Maybe you could go door to door, asking for money to help pay for the chocolate. Also selling another box for more money than necessary to pay for the new and stolen chocolate? – Eleanor’21

I would be disappointed as well, but I would text or call my friends to help me search or stay after school. Maybe even leave another box of chocolates to leave as bait and draw in the culprit. So I would either start a search party or leave bait. — MJ’21

I would say that your son should keep his valuables in a more safe environment. Thank you for mentioning this, I hope you and your son have a happy life! — Sienna’21

I hope in the future he will find an adult to help him figure out how to keep his valuables safe. He is always welcome to come to sell chocolate to Room 103 for an elevated price to help make up for the stolen wares! — Ms. Debbie P’02

Do you have something to add? Email your Dear Walter answer (or question!) to djv4258@lausd.net.

The End. (or the great confusion, chaos, madness, and in between small sharp inches of brightness that define the wonderful and magnificent)

June 5, 2018

A short chapter of me and everyone less.

Alas, it has come to an end, the school year I mean. Like all good things, they come to tragic conclusions, resolutions, finale, whatever you want to call it. However is this really the end? As a sixth grader, I didn’t have the slightest clue on how to envision myself as an eighth grader. I had no clue about friends, how I looked, school work, and how to pull off these three years ahead of me. Would I become miserable during middle school just like I had in elementary school? Would I be popular? I now know the answer to these questions or most of them. The party is over, the music was maybe too loud, but now you kind of miss it.

Humans are creatures of nostalgia, and I tend to not look at it as a mixture of sadness and happiness; a yearning for your older archetypes and personalities. It’s rather confusing with it being twofold. Maybe this is the end; it defines the sad conclusion of the main character in his final battle and losing grip on his sword as he falls to his doom. It’s a tragic death but if you stopped there, you wouldn’t realize the next part. The part where a magical trampoline bounces the character back into action. It’s twofold, well at least it seems.

While at this place called school where learning is inevitable, I learned plenty of things. I learned arithmetic and geometric sequences, I learned about the young adult novel genre and why it is so popular, I learned poetry, I learned about our world at an atomic level, I learned about State Suicide Theory, I learned about chamber music, but most of all, I learned what it meant to be human. I finally understood what it meant to be a homo sapien with complex moral systems, opinions, and thoughts that define the flesh-bound, bone-dense, muscle comprised creatures we all are.

Humans are defined by other humans. Humans are defined by action. Humans are defined by who they choose to be. Humans are defined by emotions transmitted through facial expressions. Humans are unpredictable. Humans are an art form constantly being changed, altered, transformed, etc.

During my first year and a half of middle school, I remember as being a pretty reckless and insensitive human being. Despite my mischievous and odd behavior, I had teachers who believed in me. Even when I, the oh-so-cool dude was making a mess, my teachers treated me like every other student. My teachers didn’t give up and they cared for me, even when they had good reason not to. This is why I probably love the public school education system. I was never the best student, but my teachers were probably just as reckless when it came to teaching the kid I was. Why did I need school? Why did I need to learn from people? The answer to this question is simple, learning is a necessity. The fact that humans are able to feed something to their brains and keep it there is mind-boggling. Curiosity empowers learning, and teachers are those who must first plant the seed and grow it.

Besides this though, I had my comrades, my allies, my friends. These were the people who understood the odd person I was. Now that eighth-grade has almost ended, I can reflect on who I was during middle school, and with this, my most common thoughts are about my colleagues. It honestly doesn’t feel like three years, and even with those three years, these people have changed my life. I can easily say that my middle school years are so far my happiest ones. We laughed at stupidity, memes, communism, politics, books, and when everyone else thought we were the stupid ones in a highly gifted honors program and chuckled at the irony, we in return laughed harder. These people without a doubt changed the insight on my moral obligations, personal thoughts, and the outcome of life. Why is friendship so important? Why are friends necessary? These are questions I now know the answer to. Of course, I wouldn’t tell anyone.

Addressing one last thing: that is of destiny. I think people have fallen into the mindset that everything must go the way they intend it to, and if it doesn’t you’re screwed, you’ve ruined the life, and good luck with it. This is said often with high school and university. But in reality, I don’t think high school is the end of your life, frankly, I don’t even think that college is the end either. Adulthood is not even destiny. It’s not a dead end and it never will be. Even if you reach the end, it’s not the end. Nothing ever is the end! Fate is not determined by what you consider to be the final and last stage of maturity for life. Fate is never a constant, it’s always changing, becoming something else. Life is not a fork in the road where you pick one and then you pick another, there are millions, even billions of possibilities and with that said, I think the concept of destiny is non-existent. Destiny is what you decide on for yourself, not what others determine for you.

With all of this, I’ve realized one thing: luck, and the huge abundance of it. There is so much luck in this world that is unaccounted for and that we forget about so easily. As humans, we must rely on the good judgement of people we don’t know and those who we least expect it from. 5 choose 3 and 5 choose 2 are the same value. There is an infinite number of possibilities, and the fact that a small chain of events have lead to my current status as a human is just too much to comprehend for anyone. So much of this is out of my control, and as far as I can tell, from how I’ve made it this far, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But what about the small things, what if I had forgotten that assignment that day? What if I had told a lie instead of the truth? I think as humans we forget the amounts of luck and chance that is spread and planted throughout our entire life. Sure I’ve had my doubts. I question everything and I am a skeptic, but I’ve tested and experimented with it enough such that I know. Even if the road is bumpy and it seems like life is out there to get ya, things always will get better. As a general pessimist I strongly believe that everything will be fine eventually. And no matter how bad things are, we must not forget to have dreams and ambition. You must believe and trust your own instincts even when the results seem inevitable. You have to trudge through the mud with gusto, with faith, with joy, with enthusiasm even when the odds are stacked against you. Things will turn out for the better, and when things don’t seem so good, you have to continue.

One question I don’t know how to answer: Why is there luck? I have a theory. Luck is there to turn and change life. Luck is there for those who were and still are reckless. Luck is there for the initially unlucky and forgotten. Luck is for those with ambition. After all, I like to live my life on the edge. The world we live in is wonderful, perfect, unique, special and a very fine place to call home. Everything in its right place.

-Dean Kim ’18

Best Albums 2-17-2018: No Particular Order

June 5, 2018

Parquet Courts- Wide Awake! (Some of the band’s catchiest and most energetic material, should definitely check out the album)

Iceage- Beyondless (By Danish rock group, up and at for over a decade now, some pretty unique stuff in the current music scene)

Kendrick Lamar- Damn. (A favorite for everyone, Kendrick’s still got it on his 3rd record)

Yung Abu- Ham Season (Great EP by SoundCloud Rapper, favorites are Ham Season and Blood, probably the best album of 2018 hands down)

Mount Eerie- Now Only (After the extremely sad and heart wrenching album, “A Crow Looked at Me”, a metaphor for the death of his wife from pancreatic cancer, Mount Eerie is back with a new record “Now Only”. While it can be seen as a sequel to “A Crow Looked at Me”, it’s different, and the listener can ultimately can make the decision)

MGMT- Little Dark Age (Some eccentric and exciting indie rock, love the title track Little Dark Age, Me and Michael, etc. You get the point)

Screaming Females- All At Once (Alternative rock band hailing from New Jersey, with some killer catch for melody and songwriting, even with only three members)

The Sciences- Sleep (Was not expecting to like this one, but with more growth and adventure and salutations to their original sound)

The Voidz- The Virtue (Some pretty good garage rock mixed with psychedelic sounds similar to Pink Floyd, a bit generic but sure, it’s still pretty good)

Tyler the Creator- Flower Boy (A comeback for Tyler from his days in Odd Future)

Father John Misty- Pure Comedy (Ughhhh, amazing album so good)

Paramore- After Laughter (A good mixture of punk and disco from emo-rock band Paramore)

Jlin- Black Origami (Some really interesting electronic)

Lorde- Melodrama (A favorite for every mainstream pop listener, Lorde brings much more emotion and fuller sound on this record compared to “Pure Heroine”)

Brand New- Science Fiction (Love this record, and what a return for the band itself after more than a decade of silence)

-Dean Kim ’18

One Final Album Review: Artic Monkeys: Tranquility Base and Hotel + Casino

June 5, 2018

The Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band initially formed in 2002. Their debut record, “What People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not” was a spunky and outrageously clever album was a surprise on the British punk revival scene at the time. This was followed by their sophomore record “Favorite Worst Nightmare” that still contained similar aspects from their previous record with more catchy melodies and more appropriate vocals from Alex Turner, the lead vocalist. Their most recent record before this one, AM was a bit of a strange one, depicting scenes of the life of a party mixed with confusion, melodrama, and strange love. Much of the song material relied on heavy echo effects and stronger reliance on drum beats and patterns. As far as I could tell, the record was decent, but much it of sounded too similar, tracks like Do I Wanna Know?, Arabella, and Why’d you only call me when you’re high?” share similar lyrical content and style. They all rely on this chunky drum beat to access the tempo and serve as an introduction to the guitar and bass.

Going into this new record? Expectations were in the middle somewhere. Based off of the single introduced from the record, it definitely seemed like they are heading towards a more pop, glam rock, or even avant-garde style compared to their heavier guitar-oriented sound before. Four Out of Five is actually a surprisingly good pop song with mixtures of glam rock and country? The lyrics come naturally for the band with these incredibly smooth lead and back vocals from the band members. The song is a slow-churner with the awkward drums playing initially. It sounds like something that Jack White would do. The song contains elements reminiscent of the 80s specifically in synthesizer. The song takes and break arrives a semitone higher and Alex Turner says this in the lyrics. There are sounds similar to an organ on the track that contribute to the pop style they are going for.

Besides this, the album starts off strangely, with a tad bit of a jazz influence and it sounds like background music for 60s. There’s sounds of Leonard Cohen or even Frank Sinatra lurking inside with the piano and guitar playing the same melody. This is the kind of music played in clubs or lounges. The guitar solo out the end however is horrible, just some thrashing sound on distortion dragged on like a dead cat. It’s a slow start. The next starts with a repeating piano chord with the once again awkward and stiff drums. However there is some very identifiable bass and the guitar does a decent job of playing a more laid back and rhythmic role. Alex’s falsetto performance is decent as well. “American Sports” is much more interesting in track style but nothing special. The title track “Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino” is actually a decent track. The piano and guitar wants again line up again in the beginning but the guitar later leaves going to play its own role. The vocal performance pays tribute to David Bowie in mood and vocal style with the very wispy and delicate singing. The song grows with the inclusion of the underlying bass that gives a “wow” sound effect. Definitely a personal favorite on the record.

The next track, “Golden Trucks”, even with the addition of distortion guitar, the dreamy, exotic, and creamy sound is still there. The vocals are surprisingly nice however, the backing vocals I mean. Alex gets a bit ridiculous singing about a wrestler with golden trucks. The harmonizations are actually very beautiful between Alex and the other band members. They have good chemistry. The song ends on a dissonant ending on a E flat. The lyrical structure of it is skeletal in a lot of ways and does follow the traditional course that the opener has.

I think however eventually by fifth or sixth track, the listener is exhausted by the same laid-back, melancholy, and depressed tone from the songs. And that is the greatest downfall of the record. Alex Turner, lead vocalist doesn’t even sound passionate about what he’s singing and the amount of reverb and echo does contributes to the headache received from the record.

The 8th track “Science Fiction” is a nice subtle change but not that big of a difference. The piano plays the lower octaves while the guitars and a ghost synthesizer lead it. The track could easily be mistaken for any other song played in a minor key, with piano and quiet guitar. The song feels like filler. The next track “She Looks Like Fun” is a change with loud piano in the beginning. They come down hard on the track, a good change. The chorus is sung in the range of a bass and is unusual for a chorus. The lyrics just don’t make sense at all from literal standpoint and I think a metaphorical one doesn’t justify it either. It’s a mess from start to finish. The final track, no need speak, the same. The direction they take is a good change, but is overall disappointing.

Art of Peace Club News

June 1, 2018

Art of Peace Club has a lot of cool members. In the Art of Peace Club we try to make the school a peaceful place. Over this school year Reed students turned in over 4,192 golden tickets and we are really glad that this many people did or wanted to do something kind. This year we wrote to kids in Haiti and we told them about us and what we like to eat and we asked some questions. Last week we did the chocolate exchange with donuts. And they ran out fast. We thought we were going to go completely out of donuts. Thanks to Ms. Debbie we had another box of donuts so we didn’t run out.

Our leader Ms. Jodi asked us to think about ways to change how we do the golden ticket exchange every Tuesday. We all came up with an idea to make the tickets have a cipher with clues for solving. We decided to do this because we wanted something special for the final three weeks of school. If you want to solve the last weekly cipher come by our table next Tuesday at lunch. If you want to be an Art of Peace Club member, come join us at our weekly club meeting every Tuesday at lunch.

– Esteban Martell’20 and Noah Ramirez’20

Reed Rocks Disneyland!

May 15, 2018

This Saturday, Walter Reed’s Music Department attended the prestigious Disneyland Festival. Our concert band, orchestra, concert choirs, and show choirs participated in the program “Music in the Parks.” We played with the 7th grade concert band. Daniel played the oboe and Caden played the clarinet. Out of 15 schools participating from other states, Walter Reed Concert Band got 1st place! Our band also earned the ranking of best band overall, out of both middle and high school bands! Our orchestra earned 3rd place overall. Our concert choirs, both 7th and 8th grade, earned 1st place in their division. Fanfare won 3rd place and Upbeat won 1st place! One of our students, Chastity, earned the ranking of best soloist. After we performed at Valencia High School, we went to Disneyland, enjoyed the park for a few hours, then made our way over to the award ceremony, which was held within the park! Disneyland put on a great show for us and the stadium was packed. We competed against Balboa Middle School, Central Middle School, Clairemont Lutheran Church, Creek Wood High School (from Tennessee!), El Camino High School, Foothill Christian School, Kyrene Akimel A-al Middle School (from Arizona!), Mission Vista High School, Mohave Middle School, Providence High School, Sierra Vista Junior High School, and Sowers Middle School. All competing schools were from California, except for those mentioned to be from other states.

Album Review: boordengj hose reakct

May 15, 2018

Jack White, former lead guitarist and singer of the two-part band The White Stripes has released his third solo record titled “Boarding House Reach”. The White Stripes, an iconic garage/indie rock band known for only one song, “Seven Nation Army,” released their self-titled debut record in 1999 which received critical acclaim for its DIY sound and its clever combination of punk and blues. Their very last record from 2011 was also well received before abruptly disbanding for reasons that are unknown. Since then Jack White has released Blunderbuss in 2012, and Lazaretto in 2014. This new album is a bit strange as Jack White explores into the unknown and the style presented here is very skeletal and minimal. The bare bones are shown here, along with a bit of uneven production.

Jack White takes a sample of Humoresque, the song in Suzuki Book 3 that little kids are forced to learn, by Antonin Dvorak sings lyrics over it. It’s a horrible finisher for the album in my opinion, but some of these tracks are wonderful. I do agree that the album is an uneven one, but it is uneven such that it is it’s own art.

Sometimes it feels like Jack has no idea what he’s doing and is enthusiastic about what he has to say on political and anthemic issues. Unlike his previous records, there is less of a sharp contrast in sound and more cross between genres.

Favs: Connected by Love, Over and Over and Over, Respect Commander, Hypermisophoniac

Least Favs: Corporation, Humoresque, Abulia and Akrasia

6/10

Take my opinion with a grain of nutmeg, yahhhhhh

-Dean Kim ’18

Your Opinion Matters: Nagual Holloway

May 15, 2018

Sixth grader Nagual Holloway was really excited to be hosting the escape room for the Spring Festival with the rest of the Art of Peace Club. Now that it is over, she is looking forward to doing any other projects with Art of Peace. She thinks that next year she might not be coming to our school. We, the Walter Reed Family, will miss her if she leaves!

-Tara George ’19

Book Review: Turtles All the Way Down

May 8, 2018

I usually never review reading material, including books, short stories, novels, etc. But, you know I had free time, so why not. Turtles All the Way Down is a novel written by John Green released last year, and it is funny how I’ve read it now. John Green is the famous writer behind The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns. He also stars in the YouTube channel “vlogbrothers” and starting “Crash Course.” This novel is a bit different from The Fault in Our Stars by definitely being on the darker side, following a more serious plot and so on.

The novel starts with a narrative by Aza Holmes, a 16 year old suffering from OCD, in which her own thoughts tend to spiral out of control (one thing leading to another). She is struggling with a lot. Her mother is a teacher at the high school she attends. Throughout the novel, Aza has constant thought struggles, specifically about infection from bacteria. She worries about the risk of her catching a virus, and avoids infection by cleaning her wounds, using hand sanitizer, and putting a new band aid on it every day or so. She eventually falls in love with the son of a multi-billionaire, Davis Pickett. Davis’s father runs a number of corrupt corporations and his father runs away to avoid arrest.

Aza’s paranoia about bacteria increases, this is first seen when she first kisses Davis. In order to compensate with the constant worry and anxiety, she swallows hand sanitizer to ‘kill’ the bacteria. She struggles to be a lot of things: she tries to be a good person, a good daughter, a good student, a good friend; even when she knows she can’t be. Her relationship with Daisy, her best friend, falls apart. Her relationship with her mom also deteriorates. Aza tries to tell herself that she is fine, when in reality her anxiety increases.

The novel does a very painful job (in a good way) of painting the struggles that someone with a mental disorder goes through. Green does a wonderful job in showing what it’s like to be inside Aza’s head. During the story’s climax when Aza and her best friend Daisy are having an argument, she frustratingly says how no matter how much she wants to stop thinking about it she just can’t. She compares herself to mustard, which she must eat it everyday even though she doesn’t want to. I think Green does a good job of explaining something that is just too hard to explain. Aza meets a counselor to help her with the disorder, and every time she has one of these thoughts spiral she remembers what the counselor has told her, but it never helps. Trying to describe the thought processes of someone suffering from a mental disorder is just much too difficult for anyone.

The story unfolds in an unexpected way, unlike the cliche teenage love story novels that usually ends with the two protagonists continuing their romance. Aza eventually realizes that her mental disorder is somewhat treatable. After the death of Davis’ father, Davis and his younger brother, Noah, relocate to Colorado. Aza and Davis say their final goodbye and the book ends on a bit of a sad note, but it’s fine.

Overall: 7/10, good book, the best of them all, not a modern classic like “The Guardian” would say.

-Dean Kim ’18

Catalina Island: Before

May 1, 2018

The Catalina Island trip has already crawled up into our week! This year May 4-6, the sixth grade IHP will be taking an adventure to one of our state islands, Catalina Island Marine Institute. “I can’t wait to go to Catalina!” everyone is stating. On this adventure, we will be snorkeling, sleeping in cabins with our buddies, eating in the buffet, hiking up the beautiful hills, rock climbing, and much more! Many people have told us that the water is freezing cold and sometimes it can be warm. Some also say that the food is great, and some say it wasn’t. All of these mixed emotions have been making the sixth grade IHP very excited and thrilled, and we all can’t wait for our adventure to the amazing Catalina Island to begin!

-Saehee Hyun ’20, Ally Song ’20

Party on the Dance Floor

May 1, 2018

On Saturday, April 28th, the 8th Grade Formal was held in the Rose Garden. When we first got there, it looked a little basic and not very well decorated to make it special, as the night continued though, our opinions changed. When we first walked in, we exchanged our ticket for vouchers which included food, water, drink, dessert, and picture in the photo booth, we also got a pat down. From the food, there was pizza, three types of pasta and some veggies, and for dessert there were cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, and doughnuts. Although the food looked delicious, we ended up having two bites because we decided to stay hungry and dance. The music, overall the music was up to date and easy to dance to, the DJ brought all types of energy to the dance floor. At this point, the dance seemed amazing and can easily be called one of the best nights of our life!

– Elana Merrit ‘18, Denisse Tavares ’18

Youth Olympic Games: Congrats WRMS

May 1, 2018

On Saturday, April 7th, 15 students from Walter Reed got up early in the morning to attend the Valley Youth Olympics at 7:30am. This event is hosted by the VKAPA (Valley Korean American Parent Association) and it involves both high schools and middle schools. This year, the middle schools that competed were Porter Ranch Community School, Porter, Lawrence, and Walter Reed. Walter Reed had two representatives, Camilla Martinez and Irene Kim, as well as 13 other participants: Hannah Cho, Caden Kang, Nathan Kang, Lydia Qin, Regina Lee, Bradshaw Parson, David Schils, Addison Wright, Leo Medrana, Colin Kim, Eddie Kahng, Ethan Wong, and Owen Kim. Everyone who came got Starbucks gift cards and a chance to win prizes in a raffle. There were many fun sporting events such as football, basketball, track and field, and tug of war. Walter Reed did very well this year in the Youth Olympic Games.

Walter Reed’s Accomplishments:

1st place in girls track

1st place in girls relay

3rd place in football

3rd place in basketball

3rd place overall

Everyone who participated did wonderful job and hopefully, more students can come represent Walter Reed in the Youth Olympic Games next year.

-Camilla Martinez ‘18

Gun Control: Yes or No?

May 1, 2018

Daniel- Gun control should not only be maintained, but also should be increased and enforced nationally. The fact that you only have to be 18 years old, except in Florida (21 years old) to purchase a shotgun or a rifle is incredulous. Recently, in Florida, there was a mass shooting on the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which resulted in 17+ casualties. Moreover, investigators say that the rifle still had 180 rounds in it (used 150) before he trashed it and blended in with the other students in the massacre, which means the situation could have been worse. Also, last year, on October the 1st, the Vegas shooting, an individual opening fire from Mandalay Bay on a crowd in a concert, resulted in 59 deaths and over 400 casualties (deadliest mass shooting in history) and as of 2015, 372 mass shootings occured in the US, according to website Mass Shooting Tracker. Of those 372 shootings, 64 of them were at schools. Instead of looking back at these event as tragedies, we must act by both upping security at schools and enforcing harsher gun control. On February 23, 2018 Jonathan Martin, former NFL player and Harvard Westlake alumni, posted a disturbing image of ammunition around a gun, with the words written “When you’re a bully victim & a coward, your options are suicide, or revenge” and with “#Harvard Westlake” on Instagram. Because of the serious post, Harvard Westlake closed the campus on Friday morning. Another recent event which happened on March 10, 2018 was another shooting in the Glendale Galleria. Although nobody was killed or injured, two gunshots were fired in an attempt to rob the Rolex store. Some gun owners are taking advantage of this time that the government is at its weakest. The nation should enforce gun control for guns, they are not toys to play with. Not only should they check the background of the gun purchaser (for now private gun dealers don’t need to do a background check on the purchase), but they should make it illegal. If we enforce the law that guns should be illegal, it may be may help deter some gunmen. Some people may say allowing guns will be the deterrent for gunmen, but I think of this as ludicrous. How would getting rid of crazy gunmen be solved by adding more guns? What if the guns lay in the wrong hands, like children? Might the suicide rate increase? Although banning guns may unemploy some, everything comes at a price. Because the situation will worsen without any action, America should rethink the fate of allowing free rights to have guns in this country.

Aria and Jonathan – The right to own a gun is a constitutional right and should not be infringed upon under any circumstances. Gun ownership is a right of an American citizens under the second amendment of the United States Constitution. If a ban was to be placed, the people who use guns responsibly and for protection would no longer have them. Criminals can always get their hands on guns legal or illegal. If someone were to attack people, these people are defenseless for at least five minutes, or until the police arrive. Gunmen tend to attack vulnerable spots where no one could fight back. If there was someone else to fight back with a gun, this would put the gunman’s life at risk. If a gunman knows that there will be many people to shoot back, then the gunman wouldn’t want to shoot. AR-15s are one of the main guns that people believe should be banned. However, an uncommonly known fact is that an AR-15 was used in the Sutherland Springs massacre by a heroic gun-owner (Stephen Willeford) to stop the active shooter. Guns in the hands of people will serve as a deterrent for crazy gunmen. Not all people use guns irresponsibly. Guns can be compared to cars. Cars can be very useful, transporting you, but they can also be lethal weapons to mow down people, as shown in Nice on Bastille Day in 2016 and in Barcelona during August of 2017. We use cars everyday. Should they be banned? Factories make guns, gun shops sell them, there are gun shows, and people use guns to hunt and sell what they kill. Guns fuel each of these economic fields. If guns are taken away, these American citizens will be out of jobs. According to United States Department of Labor, 4.1% of Americans are unemployed and according to the United States Census there are about 327 million in the United States. 4.1% of 327 million is about 13.5 million people unemployed. Over 300,000 people work in the gun industry. Banning guns would take away jobs these hard-working Americans citizens. Not only will this increase the rate of unemployment, but it will increase the crime rate. Those who are poor and can’t find jobs may turn towards robbery to get money. Once people rob, they may not be able to every find a job again when their employers look at the person’s background. Most people don’t want to employ a criminal, causing a downward spiral that would have never started if guns were not banned.

Although a ban may not stop mass shootings, we believe there should be more rigorous mental health screenings in order to get a gun. If there was a mental health screening and a background check on the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there might not have been a shooting. The shooter was an orphan and was not stable. Therefore, a mental health screening would have prevented this occurrence.

Personally, we believe that we should control guns, but not ban them. We should respect each other and our rights and if one person want to buy a gun, they should be able to as long as they get a rigorous mental health screening and a background check.

Caden – Gun control is definitely a serious issue and needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

The US General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that 100% of deaths per year caused by a child under 6 years old shooting and killing him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks. Mandatory safety features would lower the number of accidental gun deaths. (Source: GAO, “Accidental Shootings: Many Deaths and Injuries Caused by Firearms Could Be Prevented,” www.gao.gov, Mar. 19, 1991)

More gun control leads to fewer suicides.

The Second Amendment is not an unrestricted right to gun access.

Guns are often not used in self-defense. Of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, only 0.79% of victims (235,700) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a gun, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Source: Michael Planty and Jennifer L. Truman, “Firearm Violence, 1993-2011,” www.bjs.gov, May 2013)

Legally owned guns are often stolen and used by criminals. A June 2013 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report states that “almost all guns used in criminal acts enter circulation via initial legal transaction,” according to the Institute of Medicine. (Source: Institute of Medicine, “Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” www.iom.edu, June 5, 2013)

Between 2005 and 2010, 1.4 million guns were stolen from US homes, a yearly average of 232,400, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Source: Lynn Langton, “Firearms Stolen during Household Burglaries and Other Property Crimes, 2005-2010,” www.bjs.gov, Nov. 2012)

According to Stanford Law Review, Ian Ayres, JD, PhD, and John J. Donohue, JD, PhD, Professors of Law at Yale Law School and Stanford Law School respectively, say, “With guns being a product that can be easily carried away and quickly sold at a relatively high fraction of the initial cost, the presence of more guns can actually serve as a stimulus to burglary and theft. Even if the gun owner had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and would never use it in furtherance of a crime, is it likely that the same can be said for the burglar who steals the gun?” (Source: Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III, “Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis,” Stanford Law Review, islandia.law.yale.edu, Apr. 16, 2003) * Arguments sourced from: https://gun-control.procon.org/

Already, students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as well as other students, are having their voice be heard. They spoke to lawmakers demanding change from Washington and the National Rifle Association.

Jun- Gun control is okay but bad in a way. People like mean friends or bullies may get their hands on these dangerous weapons. Really, really, really mean friends who don’t care about other people who are actually trying in life, may get their hands on these guns. This is bad and as a physically weak kid they might not be able to stand up to mean friends and bullies with guns. These friends may include people who say they didn’t do it, and end up blaming things on other friends who are innocent. (Trust me you all got these friends.) An example may be the Florida shooting, where an expelled student was the main part of the school shooting. This is bad and gun control is needed due to this reason. Another reason may be for all the triggered and salty people like friends or actually bad people. Even though some people say that you should be responsible to get a gun, I feel that there is no real way to tell if someone is responsible or not. But on the other hand gun control is bad as it violates people’s rights in a way. In my opinion just keep the guns away from salty and triggered friends. And in the end you can never tell who is responsible to own a gun or not.

Rasek – In my opinion, I think that guns should be given to people who can handle the responsibility to have one and should not be given to people that are not responsible. Guns should not be put into the wrong hands. I also think there should be an age for a person to have a gun. I think that this should happen because it could be very dangerous if an under-age person gets their hands on a gun. President Donald Trump said that some school staff should have guns in order for self- defense and to protect students from a gunman if there was a school shooting. This has been enforced in some schools already. Nine states including Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and etc.

Konstantin – Gun control is a controversial topic, but we should agree that gun control should be enforced with more regulations. Recently, the deadliest mass shooting occurred in Las Vegas where 58 were killed and 500 injured. The shooter was able to harm so many people because of certain attachments to his semi-auto rifle, making it shoot like an automatic rifle. He used a bump stock to increase the rate of fire to nine bullets per second. This compares to an AK-47’s rate of fire which is about 10 rounds per second. We should regulate attachments that can be added on guns because it can make some of these guns extremely deadly in certain situations. Why would someone defending themselves need nine rounds per second?

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Remember Walter Reed students, you can have your voice be heard as well. Head on over to the library to write to the principal, school staff, or even government officials. Ask any questions you have, and offer suggestions to help make our school a safer place in the future.

Your Opinion Matters: Parris Rugley

April 25, 2018

Parris Rugley is in 7th grade and is looking forward to summer. She is dreading keeping up her grades and is scared for next year. She said, in response to asking about clubs, that she is in the BTS fandom called the ARMY. She says it’s really fun and never gets old. Next year, she sees herself in 8th Grade prospering and thriving in all categories.

-Tara George ’19

The Death Of Stalin: Deceit, Treachery, and Lithuanian Cubs

April 19, 2018

The Death of Stalin is a British independent film released in 2016 directed by Armando Iannucci, and finally crossed the pond to theaters the last Friday in March. It has received praise from multiple sources, and has even been banned in former U.S.S.R. member states, such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. But is it truly deserving of its praise? That is what Dean Kim, Enzo Banal, and Nicolas Eisenberg are about to tell you.

Dean Kim: I think what is so great about this film is that it captures a moment in time filled with paranoia, panic, and worry under the reign of Stalin. The movie has its moments of funny and cheap laughs, that would otherwise never work out. The Death of Stalin is a surprisingly fresh and funny film in the otherwise bleak film industry. The cast did a wonderful job in making sure their roles as a certain character from the Soviet Union did not turn dry from continuous shots of the same scenes. The film uses many techniques and types of humor such as slapstick, irony, and its ridiculous portrayal of men acting like three year olds over a country. There is a constant power struggle.

The film has its share of very explicit and controversial language and scenes such as the burning of one of Stalin’s politburo members, however it does a wonderful job of speaking truth into a comedy. It gives the viewers a perspective into what life in the Soviet Union was like. The film is a comedy with very dark foreshadowing of the realities of living under a dictator that no one could oppose. After Stalin’s death, Beria, one of Stalin’s right hand men, goes to the gulag camps informing the prisoners held there that Stalin has died. The prisoners who should hate Stalin for putting them in the camps in the first place for no reason at all, start crying. Beria tells them to not cry, and to rejoice that Stalin is gone.

There are scenes of paranoia, where citizens are walking and then quickly running from soldiers realizing they are wanted for some reason or another. Some of the movie is not realistic, Beria, in the film is burned alive and killed with gasoline. But in reality, Beria was arrested and tried for treason, and he even confessed that he was gaining more power to turn the U.S.S.R. into a capitalist country. When the politburo members hold meetings, all of the motions pass unanimously because the members are all scared of distancing themselves from other members and not doing as “Stalin would have”. They could be executed for it. The movie however is for just purposes of just cheap laughter and it is the type of film that you watch once and never watch again. It is fun. Even with a small budget, the film comes to life thanks to the clever acting of all the members.

Score: 7.5/10

Enzo Banal: The movie begins as a bleak picture of a harsh regime enforcing its dictatorial control over a starving population. It might seem hard to sneak jokes into this situation, but Armando Iannucci manages. This first part is the dialects. Instead of every actor faking a Russian accent, the actors used their real voices. This lead to a quirky mix of British, American, and New Jersey accents that really lighten the tone.

Another part of the humor is the realism of it. The movie starts out when Stalin is alive. On March 4th, 1853, he hears a piano concerto over the radio and immediately demands a recording of the song. The piano concerto wasn’t recorded – but who can say no to Stalin? Unless you’re willing to get executed, no one. In order to get a realistic sound, the Soviet officials have to bring in peasants wandering on the street to replace the half of the audience that has already left. The conductor also left the theatre, so the officials travel to the other side of Moscow to find another conductor to replace him. Not only that, but they had to bribe the anti-Stalin pianist who refused to play.

While all of this is objectively funny, you can’t really grasp the hilarity of it until you realize that all this actually happened. It’s historical fact. So here we are, less than 15 minutes into the movie: a conductor in his pajamas playing to an audience of starving elderly paupers in a gilded theatre, all living in fear of a dictator who rules with an iron fist. It’s a perfect snapshot into an average day in the Soviet Union.

The only downside to this movie is that it wasn’t entirely original. Many of the jokes were run-of-the-mill ways to get laughs, most of which revolved around the immaturity of supposedly mature adults running the largest country on Earth. Other jokes reached a deeper truth about the horror inside of an isolated nation. For example, “I should just shoot myself like mother.”

Due to the realism of this movie, it is much more enjoyable if you know the history of the Soviet Union before watching it. I won’t reveal which of Stalin’s disciples wins out in the end, but I will reveal that this movie involves backstabbing, bishop-shaming, broken promises and kneeling in excrement. Basically, whatever your brand of humor is, you will enjoy this movie.

Final score: 8.75/10

Nicolas Eisenberg: Adding on to what comrade Enzo said, the realism of the movie drives home the enjoyability. Watching grown men that are in charge of a global superpower struggle to carry their leader is something you would expect out of a monty python skit, but knowing that it might of happened makes it that much funnier. But the realism also serves to add a darker truth to the story. Knowing that all of the deceitfulness, back-stabbing, and murder happens in real life makes it feel a bit more darker.

During the concerto scene, Stalin is giving orders to the NKVD to execute suspected dissidents. One NKVD officer gives the order to “Kill him first, shoot her in front of him, and kill this one any way you want.” While it is funny, but when you realize that it happened in real life it makes it make it Black Comedy. A lot of the comedy comes from taking the morbid happenings of the Soviet Union into dark comedy, which although funny is quite morbid.

The casting is well done, especially for a small indie film. I especially like the performances of Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs and Rupert Friend. They really bring life and wit into the characters they are playing, and I enjoyed the move the most when they are on screen.

Final score: 7.5/10

“We are all Belarusian Cubs”

-Dean Kim ‘18, Enzo Banal ‘18, Nicolas Eisenberg ‘18

Young Fun Now (A Review of My Spring Break)

April 19, 2018

Hello folks, this is part review, part challenge. On my last day of spring break, I went to a park, and I usually don’t like going there, but I was forced to. There I went to the swing set, and believe me I was out of my comfort zone. For one thing, the playground is for toddlers and kids who are like five years old, but it didn’t matter as I am pretty short anyway and anyone could mistake me for a 3rd grader. As I rode on the swing set, it was fun. It was a method of going back to my childhood. So I challenge all of you adolescents to get out while you can and have some fun on a swing set for no good reason. Sometimes it is good to get younger and rejuvenate yourself. The swing set I was on was crappy. And the metal chains gave me two blisters after being on the set for only five minutes. It hurt. But still, I challenge all of you to get in an awkward situation such as this and make the best of it.

So my spring break was mediocre, I went to a sealed event with only two people, and I opened 12 booster packs, and out all of them, I got another Liliana, Death’s Majesty. My ally, Matthew Chak, opened two Gods and a masterpiece. I was rather disappointed as we were supposed to have a fourth member, but he did not show up (cough, cough Nick.) For the rest of the days however, I spent it at my house playing Minecraft, and practicing my instrument. A couple of people were planning to have a draft event but it was cancelled. Besides this, I finished my book project book in a day (416 pages) and accomplished one of my goals in my bucket list: to stay awake for 24 hours. It was absolutely wonderful, I got most of my work done, I listened to eight violin concertos and Kanye West’s Life of Pablo record (5/10.) By the 6th day, I was bored out of my mind. I tried to find something interesting by going to the library, checking out new records, and web surfing. My brain was likely stimuli and just like Ben Martin, it needs to feed.

I got Snapchat for the first time, and went to eat at nice restaurants. I discovered the horrors and wished to quit soon. My sister made me play Minecraft because she likes the game, and I was not happy about it. By the end however, I was just glad to be back to school. Overall my spring break wasn’t the worst, but wasn’t the best.

3rd Person:

For one thing, I think Dean’s spring break overall is just a sad attempt to gain sympathy/empathy from the reader. Dean’s narrative tone is just not good. The vocals and structure he produces for such articles are not the greatest. There are some moments in this article that are interesting, such as his Magic Experience but other than that, there pretty bland. I think the tracks he provides in this review of his not good, but could be improved. (4/10)

The Broad is a modern art museum located in Downtown Los Angeles. It is made up of three floors, with the 3rd floor hosting a permanent display of modern art for the public. The first floor holds temporary exhibitions, and the second floor is a warehouse.The museum is rather exclusive, needing advanced booking for anyone to get in, but admission to the museum is free. It is also, in my opinion, the most confusing and bizarre place I have ever been to.

I would like to begin my article by emphasizing the point that I am not an art critic. I do not have the proper qualifications to review art or to declare what is high-quality art and what is not. This article is just a Joe Schmoe giving his thoughts and opinions on a modern art museum.

Ascending to see the modern art feels like entering a world that you do not understand. The art that you immediately see is less confusing, with the escalator having large paintings and sculptures lining the walls. But as you traverse deeper into each room, you begin to find weird things. The art begins to get post-modern and meta, as if the artist was unsure if they were creating art or not. The area even feels like a maze, and I felt myself getting lost several times. I asked myself several times in the museum,“Is this art?” The obvious answer is yes, but everything I saw challenged my perception of art. Some of the art appeared blatantly unfinished, and I asked myself, “Was this the artist’s intention?” One painting is literally a list of ways to be a successful artist, which made me ask myself, “What is the deeper meaning behind this?” This was one question that I did not, and I still don’t know how to answer. I did not want to try and analyze anything here, because it will only give me a headache. However, you can definitely tell that some pieces of art have had more thought put into them.

Me es no comprendo

The composition of the museum is alright. Artists with multiple paintings in The Broad have their own little corners, and art with similar themes are grouped together. They even have some exhibits, although you have to pay to get into them, or wait for a long time. Overall, The Broad is a fun place to spend an afternoon if you want to challenge your perspective on art. And hey, it’s free, so the only thing you are losing is your time and sanity.

Dog

Final Score: A Red Circle on a Blue Square/ 10

-Nicolas Eisenberg ‘18

PTSA Clarice Chaplain Memorial Scholarship

April 6, 2018

Congratulations to our Reed recipients of the PTSA Clarice Chaplain Memorial Scholarship! The recipients had the opportunity to perform their piece and receive money that goes towards private music lessons. Pictured with Reed music teachers Mr. Rosen and Ms. ‘Rourke are the recipients Matthew Lee, Julia Gong, Melina Hernandez, and Macgyver Cotrell.

Scary Hour EP Review

April 3, 2018

Hello everybody. I am back doing a quick review on the new Scary Hour EP by Drake. Drake is a hip hop/trap artist who made waves in the hip hop community with several mixtapes. He released his debut record Thank Me Later in 2010. Ever since that record, he has been continuously rising to the top as one of the most popular hip hop artists in the game. Drake has never been my favorite artist in any way and frankly I don’t care for his music that much. His most recent album Views was a disaster with hastily written lyrics along with pop tracks loaded with filler. He then released a “playlist” titled More Life. Some of the tracks on that playlist were enjoyable such as Gyalchester, Portland, or even Passionfruit.

This new EP over here however is a bit of a different story. This EP is short with only two tracks, “God’s Plan” and “Diplomatic Immunity”. “God’s Plan” has hit number 1 and has maintained that spot for currently 3 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. The song in my opinion is nothing special, and Drake’s vocals are just as raspy and nasally like in his other songs. I do have to say the song is quite catchy with its washed out, sly, and shifty instrumental. I do like this song much better than his other efforts. The music video was also a very kind gesture which I do appreciate. The next song “Diplomatic Immunity” is a bit odd. It opens up with some brass instruments, with a very typical trap beat kicking the song off. It sounds like a freestyle with no definite structure at all. There are a couple of lines that do not make sense such as the one about the Treaty of Versailles. After World War I had come to an end, the allied powers along with Germany signed a treaty stating that the damage Germany had caused was their fault. The line just does not make sense when he is talking about luxury restaurants, returning, being cool and unstoppable and other stuff. There are lines about dirty laundry and etc. I just can’t stop thinking that this track was made in 20 or so minutes. The instrumental is the same for the entire track. I understand that in the genre of hip hop, it is pretty normal to hear a simple phrase or beat being repeated for the entire song. In the mix however, a hip hop track usually grows with maybe some strings, or other instruments added to enhance the track. However, on “Diplomatic Immunity”, the instrumental is the same for the entire 4:15 minutes. The beat sounds like it has been made specifically for high school rap battles. Overall not a horrible effort, but still not great.

THIS IS ME OPINIONZ SO TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN of john cena, thx

-Dean Kim ’18

Kylie Jenner’s Baby, Are we Sure Travis is the Dad?

March 16, 2018

As we all know, Kylie Jenner has had her baby. She publically announced on Instagram that she has already had her baby girl and confirmed everyone’s suspicions of her secret pregnancy. Kylie has named the baby Stormi and EVERYONE is dying to know all about her little wonder. But who is the father? As we all know Kylie dated Tyga before she dated Travis and there are a lot of rumours circling around the web that the baby is Tyga’s. Personally, I think they are just stupid rumors and that Travis is the baby daddy, but how can we really know for sure? Kris Jenner even responded to these remarks by saying, “Oh no, no, no. I think that was just a bunch of silly rumors as usual.” So, I agree they are just stupid rumors.

Kylie chose to keep her pregnancy a secret but here is what we know about the birth and everything after. Stormi was delivered at 4:43 PM and weighed 8 lbs 9 oz. The birth happened at Cedars-Sinai in L.A. where Kim and Kourtney hadtheir babies. Kylie went “underground” for five whole months keeping her pregnancy a secret from everyone except her family and close friends, all while keeping off social media. This must have been hard for Kylie, being the Snapchat queen that she is, but she recently tweeted she didn’t use snapchat that much because of the horrid update. Needless to say, Kylie is on everyone’s minds.

My opinion in the matter is this; I frankly don’t care who’s baby it is because Stormi will be the most spoiled baby on the planet. She will want for nothing and have everything. Her mother is a multi millionaire with a successful makeup line and an Instagram with millions of followers. Whoever is the baby daddy will take care of Stormi along with Kylie’s family and friends.

-Jacy Wilson ’18

NFL Free Agency

March 16, 2018

Free agency and trading in the NFL started this week on March 14th, and there have already been a lot of big changes. The Vikings, who had three starting quarterbacks, now have none of them, but they did manage to get Kirk Cousins (formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs). The three ex-Vikings’ quarterbacks went to three different teams, Teddy Bridgewater went to the New York Jets, Sam Bradford is reportedly going to sign with the Arizona Cardinals (because Carson Palmer retired and now they do not have a quarterback), and Case Keenum signed with the Denver Broncos. The Broncos are in much need of a new quarterback, nobody knew what would happen when Peyton Manning retired, but the past two years have not been good for the Broncos. They have been through four different quarterbacks, some of them more than once, and now they have Keenum. He might be just what they need as he seemed to do pretty well leading the Vikings to the NFC Championship game. The Vikings signed Trevor Siemian, who used to be a quarterback for the Broncos, as a backup quarterback. Also, the Packers released Jordy Nelson, who used to be a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers, because he became too expensive for them. As a publicly owned team, they do not have the same budget as some of the other teams, so they often cannot keep good players. Yesterday Jordy Nelson visited and signed with the Oakland Raiders. But the Packers did manage to get Jimmy Graham, a tight end from the Seattle Seahawks, and Muhammad Wilkerson, a defensive end from the Jets. Wide receiver Danny Amendola left the Patriots for the Miami Dolphins, the Dolphins needed someone to replace Jarvis Landry (wide receiver) who went to the Cleveland Browns. One of the big questions is what the Philadelphia Eagles will do with their two quarterbacks. For now it looks like they might keep both of them, but the Cardinals might try to get Nick Foles.

-Leila Pagel ’18

Black Panther: More than a Movie

March 16, 2018

One of the multiple ways that we Americans like to spend our time is to watch a good film. Whether it be a classic black and white film, a good natured comedy, or a horror flick, there seems to be a genre for everyone who comes to the cinema. So when people go to their seats with a tub full of popcorn, they should be able to find something for them. Even more than that, something specifically for them. Films are works of art and they are usually targeted towards a specific audience. Although there is quite a wrench in the problem. What happens when there is nothing made for you? Unfortunately, not much as it seems that you are not seen as a viable market to profit off of. So good luck getting the films you want to be greenlit. So then which movies get greenlit? Well to be quite frank, they are films that are targeted towards male and white audiences. Now how do we know this? Well simply look at the people who feature in these films. Which one outshines the other, which one gets paid more than the other, and which one gets the most acclaim for their work? Simply put, the entertainment world is quite prejudiced. So we must truly appreciate these few films that manage to break out of this system and make its way to us. One such film is the most recent blockbuster, Black Panther.

This movie is truly deserving of the praise that it has received thus far, by ascending the genre of superhero movies today. While yes, the movie is about superheroes and contains great action scenes, we are seeing the potential of truly deep storylines advancing in this genre. To put it short, Black Panther is a movie about Prince T’Challa taking over his father’s role as king in the fictional kingdom of Wakanda. While he does become king, he quickly finds himself overrun with political challenges and soon the stability of the nation is rocking back and forth. With chaos erupting in his home, he becomes the Black Panther to ensure that his people will be safe. In essence it is quite simple, but that is simply because I can’t truly give out the spoilers here in my review. Although trust in me when I say your expectations will be blown away by the script that Marvel has come up with for the movie. Once again though, it is a great movie by the standards of the genre, but what truly makes it shine was how it goes outside of the genre.

The most admirable part of the creation of this movie would be the pains that they went through to accurately represent Africa. What makes this so respectable is that when we think about Africa, we think what we are shown of Africa in the media. Poor children starving, illness taking the lives of many, and constant political coups that occur. While those parts of Africa may exist, it does not mean that it should be the only way that we see it. We should also see it as Black Panther shows it. A land that has its own beauty to it, with a wide array of culture and ideas that truly make it distinct. While they did mix up many different parts of Africa together, that was in part to show a much more broad spectrum of what Africa looks like. It is not just a single country, it is a continent and as such there are bound to be quite the number of differences. Although, that is not just the case for Wakanda. It is much more than just actual Africa however, it is what Africa could become in the future.

Wakanda is the African nation where most of the movie takes place. To the rest of the world, it seems like any other African nation with a barren landscape and very little development in the way of civilization. Although, if you look past that you will find the most advanced nation in the world. Lying in hiding under a hi tech barrier, you see the true kingdom of Wakanda. With technology decades ahead of the rest of the world, it may even make you question whether or not this is even in the same universe as the rest of the Marvel cinematic universe (a universe with gods, super soldiers, and magic). This wonderful land while fictional, truly brings to light that there are no barriers for success. Any nation can become as beautiful as this and by showing that an African nation can do it as well, is quite empowering. This is the dream of what Africa could look like, and by putting this into the hands of the masses, this will surely serve as inspiration for those who will take us there. Although since this is a movie, there is also a plot and this is what makes this much more of a conversation and an interesting movie overall.

While Wakanda did exist in this world, what have they been doing these past centuries? With technology such as this, why are they still relatively unknown and still seen as a backwards nation? Well simply put they believe that it is best to stay out of international attention and not reveal their might and power to the world. This mentality comes from the downfall of their neighbors. They saw that if you are a land full of riches, then naturally there will be people wanting to take it. Even worse than that, they also viewed the people there as part of their bounty. While the rest of the continent was slowly being conquered one at a time and the natives were enslaved, they managed to stay out of it. So the kings including T’Challa have used their power to adhere to the old customs to ensure Wakanda’s safety. This system is later threatened by the return of banished royal by the name of Killmonger. While the name certainly signifies an antagonist, his anger comes from being in a nation where he is a minority. Unlike the protagonist T’Challa, he has seen what happens to people of his own race and now wishes for Wakanda to take a stand. Wakanda did nothing to protect the continent from imperialists, but it can now promise liberation. Or even more, hegemony. This movie gives us a question, how should a nation use power to right the wrongs of those who have abused others? Should they seek vengeance, or should they make sure that only they survive? In the end it is neither, as both have their faults. They must do something and they must not kill. They must forgive and forget, but also restructure the damage that has been caused. Focus on the next generation, make it so that they will not be subject to the same treatment as their parents. Give them opportunities, so that they may rise from their stand in life. We may not be able to change the past, but we surely can change the future.

The final reason for why it is something to truly watch is that a previously unrepresented demographic within the United States is at the forefront of the movie. While there may have been movies like this in the past, not to the budgets at which Black Panther was made with. This is truly a blockbuster film and it seems that Hollywood is beginning to give these projects, and in turn minorities as a marketable group. With constant headlines about the success of the film, each one gives birth to another movie like Black Panther. This is why it is much more than a movie. This is revolution in cinematic form, and it will continue to spread its legacy all over Hollywood. Although we should all remember “Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.”

-Scott Lee ’18

Just Another Popcorn Movie: Black Panther Review

March 15, 2018

Black Panther is Marvel’s most recent cinematic release. It has made 748 million dollars and has been given very glowing reviews from most major websites. But is it that good? I had suspicions because, well, its another Marvel movie. They aren’t bad in any way, but they are not that special, kinda formulaic. Popcorn movies, to sum up in two words. Movies that you enjoy in the moment, but you don’t think about afterwards. So I went to the movie theater to find out.

Probably the weakest part of Black Panther is it’s story. Due to it being a Marvel story, all of the plot points could have been easily predicted. There is an event in the beginning that will come up in the end, a minor villain becomes the main antagonist, there is an “all hope is lost moment” so on and so forth. Another Marvel trope that rears its head is that the ending is relatively happy. Although there is a massive conflict that engulfs the fictional country of Wakanda, everything is hunky dory, and apart from a character who was given about 10 minutes of screentime in the movie (most of which is a flashback) none of the characters are helping the protagonist die. Even when a room containing a side character is blown up, he sustains no injuries and is shown at the end. But this is a standard complaint for most Marvel movies. All these problems are inherent to Marvel movies, so if you like Marvel movies, you most likely don’t care about the problems with the plot. But problems aside, the plot was fun to witness. It was like a rollercoaster: predictable, but fun nonetheless.

Other than the plot, I have no real problems with the movie. Everything else was well done: the actors fit their roles, the score fits the movie, the scenes were shot artfully and the locations were well chosen. This is expected from Marvel movies, as they have millions of dollars at their disposal. It was a well made action movie. I found how it balances the theme of traditions of tribal cultures with high tech sci-fi fantasy interesting, and it made the action scenes fun and interesting to watch.

Overall, this was one of the better Marvel movies. If you enjoy Marvel movies, you will enjoy this. If you like action movies in general, or you just want to enjoy a well-made movie, there are worse ways to spend a few hours.

Overall rating: 7.5/10

Fun popcorn movie, not a bad way to spend a few hours

-Nicolas Eisenberg ‘18

Walkout

March 14, 2018

March 14th was the walkout. In second period we walked out and put up signs for no more school shootings. We both made a sign that said to stop gun shootings. Some kids were walking around the school with their signs that they made. There were seventeen empty chairs that represented the seventeen people that died in the school shooting in Florida.

– Estaban Martell’20 and Noah Ramirez,20

Your Opinion Matters: Steven Storoshko

March 13, 2018

Steven Storoshko is a seventh grader at Walter Reed MS. He says that every day he sees one or two fabulous people who make sure to clean up after themselves after lunch. Steven says, “Not a lot of kids do that. But, everyday there is one unique student and that’s really cool.”

He is determined to get a 4.0 GPA this semester, even though he knows it will be hard. He is also on a soccer sports team with Real So Cal Academy. He says that they get to travel for tournaments. They are the number one soccer team in California!

He plans to be an caring 8th grader, giving 6th graders help and advice next year.

You too, can submit a short questionnaire about yourself, and hopefully it will get published in Reed Review next week! See below…

-Tara George ’19 (edited by Cloey Kim ’19)

Album Review: Da Oozed Selv-Titeuld Allbem Ryeevoow

March 6, 2018

2002 was the year of The Used, one of the most well known rock bands that pushed the genre of post-hardcore. Their debut record was something that shocked the world. Not only did it push the band into great success, it was beautiful, hard rock, aggressive that matched perfectly into the current rock and roll scene at the time. The entire record is one that has shaped and influenced the many rockers to come afterwards. Even after 15 years, this record still has so much meaning to people including me. I believe that their debut record is their best effort out of the band’s entire discography. The Used will be one of those bands that will never top their debut record even with the new release of their 7th album, “The Canyon”. Their first album captured a moment, a fragment of time. This was when the band was young, ruthless, poor, hungry and most of all, passionate to take on the world. They had nothing to lose. Of course over the years, the band has seemed to lost their creativity and purpose as musicians with lyrics on “Lies for the Liars” that were nonsensical, to the bland and overdone guitar riffs and predictable choruses on “Artwork”, and finally to the horrifying mixture of hip-hop beats with hardcore rock on “Vulnerable”.

The album is a rather strange and is the queerest of them all. Quinn Allman, the group’s lead guitarist has a tendency to play awkward and mismatched chords along with simple bar chords for the chorus, this combined with Bert’s thin and unpleasant vocals make the song a mixed bag of oddities. I do have to complement the band in trying to try different dynamics and ranges of sound throughout the album from different pedal effects, string arrangements, and guitar playing styles. The album however does showcase Bert’s rather extended and versatile vocal abilities with smooth transitions from screaming to singing. From heavier and beefier songs such as Maybe Memories or Buried Myself Alive to soft and mellow ballads of the record like “Blue and Yellow” or “Poetic Tragedy”, the album is an eye opener for what the future of punk at the time. The album opens up with a bunch of sound and strange noises. Then comes in these loud booming and angry guitars with Bert’s constant bombardment of vocals. It is probably one of the best openers of albums and ends with a satisfying thud introducing the world to the sound of The Used. It is a hard hitter and rather dissolving the listener’s ears, shatters them instead.

There are moments on the album that are reflective and sad, yet others are angry and frustrated at the world. “A Box Full of Objects” is a perfect example of what comes typically for the band. Quinn comes up with a weird guitar riff with odd chords and time signature, while Bert screams his gut’s with a very nice chorus to compensate for it. I especially appreciate the drums on the track that uses the hi-hats and cymbals to create a more obstructed and choked landscape of sound. There are songs like the “The Taste of Ink”, a fan favorite that also shares similar characteristics. Besides these songs, there are tracks on this record that are more beautiful such as “Blue and Yellow” which feature a simple piano accompaniment to the guitars along with one of Bert’s best vocal performances. Other songs like “Poetic Tragedy” mentioned previously starts off with a melodic and tranquil ballad that later explodes and blossoms into a bigger song. The band for one thing, writes their most sincere and profound lyrics on this record. The album ends on a soft note yet powerful note, with the track “On My Own”. The song features the beautiful string arrangements that I discussed earlier. The lyrics can be interpreted in multiple ways, it can be seen as a thought of loneliness and isolation while I see as a rather optimistic ending to the album showing that no matter how messed up the world, there is hope.

This album is not all good however, there are several issues with the album that I have.

The Song “Bulimic” is one of my least favorites with its guitar work that is just inferior compared to the other songs. Bert’s vocals are also horrid here, especially in the chorus when his voice sound whiny and exhausted from singing too high. Songs like “Buried Myself Alive” sounds like the average and generic punk/emo rock song of that era that really is not special. The song structure is generic, and the guitar offered just sounds like every other heavy power chord-centered song on Earth. The track feels like filler, although the vocal performance is not horrible. “Greener with the Scenery” sounds extremely similar to Radiohead’s song, “Street Spirit”. Songs “Say Days Ago” although a favorite among many fans just doesn’t strike as impressive in any way. The lyrics are bland and sounds too similar to their intro track. It almost seems like The Used are either reusing their formulas or are just running out of them when it comes to making good songs. There seems to be a lack in variation in just some of the tracks. However, I do think that the album shows and exposes the true colors of the band and what they are made of. The last track on the album is horrible. The final song “Pieces Mended” with the hidden track just ruins the final atmosphere of the song “On My Own” and sounds a last minute b-sided added just in case. In this scenario, it does more harm than good as I feel that the song destroys the mood and tries to recreate the angsty and hostile ambience from the previous tracks with a little bit of evil mixed in. The hidden track is completely unnecessary as well.

Rating: 6/10

Fav Tracks: Maybe Memories; Poetic Tragedy; A Box Full of Sharp Objects; Blue and Yellow; The Taste of Ink

Disclaimer: me opinion is not important 2 u so take it with a grain of pepper, thank you.

-Dean Kim ’18

Tour for Story Thieves: Worlds Apart announced

March 6, 2018

On February 10, 2018, millions of people were seen celebrating outside of the streets of Phoenix, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles as their cities were chosen as locations to be visited by James Riley, the extremely famous and successful bestselling author of the Story Thieves series (Evan’s favorite book series), which has sold over five million copies internationally and has been translated into numerous languages, in his tour for the fifth and final installation to the Story Thieves (Evan’s favorite book series) series, Story Thieves: Worlds Apart, scheduled to come out on March 20, 2018.

For the five or ten minors left in the United States who have not read Story Thieves (Evan’s favorite book series) but instead have simply heard of the series from the countless reviews from their own friends to other authors to nationally recognized newspapers and book reviews, a brief description of the series will be provided as follows, quoted from a reader (definitely not Evan) of Story Thieves (Evan’s favorite book series) from Walter Reed who prefers to remain anonymous: “Story Thieves by James Riley is the greatest, bestest, most awesomest series of all time, ever. It started in the New York Times bestselling Story Thieves, which was called a “fast-paced, action packed” story by Publisher’s Weekly and numerous other magazines. The story continued in Story Thieves: The Stolen Chapters, Story Thieves: Secret Origins, and Story Thieves: Pick the Plot, all of which were nominated for and won almost every literary award of the year. I can hardly wait for the fifth and final installation of the series, Story Thieves: Worlds Apart, to come out. Though they are usually checked out for being incredibly popular, the school library occasionally has a few copies out of the many they have in total available, so I highly recommend any of you who for whatever bizarre reason have not read the series to read it ASAP.” And there you have it, readers. A direct quotation from a fellow classmate of yours at Walter Reed.

Anyway, now that the one or two people in our school who haven’t read Story Thieves (Evan’s favorite book series) know more of what the series is about, the tour for Worlds Apart is scheduled to begin in Salt Lake City on March 19 and, more notably, end on Friday, March 23, 02018, in Thousand Oaks, California, just one hour’s drive away from Walter Reed Middle School. Just 25 days from now, students from across LAUSD and, most likely, Southern California, will converge at 160 South Westlake Boulevard Barnes and Noble bookstore, just for a chance to get glimpse at the highly successful author of the esteemed Story Thieves series.

Though the city of Los Angeles and the thousands and thousands of students and adults alike known to have read the great Story Thieves series are most likely idly celebrating at this time, preparations may also be necessary. On James Riley’s previous tour for Story Thieves: Pick the Plot in Virginia, Washington, DC, and New York City, the great author was host to over one hundred thousand chanting supporters from across New England and the general Northeastern United States area. Most spectators were lucky just to get a glimpse at the author they had heard of only in legend and whose books they knew better than any other. Things most likely are not going to change in the Californian tour, besides the fact that the population of the gatherings shall only go up since the popularity of the Story Thieves series has only increased. Says an avid Story Thieves supporter from Southern California who prefers to be quoted anonymously (and is certainly not Evan), “I’m planning to camp outside of the Barnes and Noble that Mr. Riley’s gonna visit three days previous to the tour’s arrival in LA, like my cousins over in DC did when they heard ‘bout Riley coming over to their area for that incredibly amazing and well-written book Pick the Plot. In my opinion, anyone who doesn’t do so who wants to see him’s kidding themselves.”

Indeed, already, hundreds have began planning on camping out and staying in at the Barnes and Noble for at the very least hours before James Riley’s speaking at 6:00 PM of the 23rd (though Riley has been known to arrive late and book small venues, if just to amp up the crowds). Students of Walter Reed who hope to so much as get their books touched by their favorite author are suggested to, if incapable of doing the same, at the very least rush straight to the tour immediately after school goes out on the 23rd.

Merchandise for Story Thieves is also expected to go up as the countdown to Worlds Apart coming out gets shorter. Already, Story Thieves posters, action figures, books, and other pieces of patented merchandise have been produced by the thousand throughout the Western United States, all to be sold at the Story Thieves conventions to be going on in three different Western states.

And if the popularity of the series wasn’t enough, after James Riley famously stating as he informed the people of America of where his next tour would take place that it would be “my last Story Thieves tour EVER,” people from out of the state and even the country will probably be flying in to get James Riley to sign their German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and other translated Story Thieves books (Evan’s favorite book series).

Be ready students of Walter Reed. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet one of the greatest writers of the 21st Century, or perhaps even of all time, ever, and almost certainly could become the actual greatest moment of all of our lives. Don’t let it go to waste! See you at the Worlds Apart tour… or not because almost nothing will be able to be seen through the extraordinarily dense crowds!

-John English, 2017 (Most definitely not a cover up for Evan French ‘18)

NBA: (Nicolas Baller Analysis)

February 23, 2018

The NBA has been popping lately with many trades being proposed and accepted, as well as lots of rumors and news spreading! The main thing that is being shared right now is that NBA superstar and three time champion, Lebron James, wants to leave the Cavs at the end of this season in order to win some championships, potentially in Los Angeles with the Lakers. Hoping to be with the Lakers to ball with the soon to be star, Lonzo Ball, or on the Houston Rockets with best friends Chris Paul and James Harden. Also in the NBA, today, former star of the Boston Celtics and Point Guard of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Isaiah Thomas and Channing Frye got traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. Another major trade which happened earlier this month, was the trade between the Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons, in which the Clippers traded Blake Griffin to the Pistons for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic, and a first-round pick in the 2018 NBA draft!

-Nicolas Andrawis ’18

Your Opinion Matters

February 15, 2018

Amalia Benenati is a sixth grader at Walter Reed Middle School. She recently noticed the kind people at school helping others when they need it, and she also noticed students greeting their teachers in the hallways. She is looking forward to participating in more choir concerts. Also, she was once in cheer club which she enjoyed very much! Amalia has a club of her own called Plastic to Penny.

She is one of several people who have completed my questionnaire. You too can fill it out and wait to see if your form will appear in the reed review next week!

Korean New Year

February 15, 2018

Most people celebrate the American New Year on January 1st. However, Koreans have our own new years holiday. This year, it is on February 16th, which is tomorrow. On this day, Koreans wear a traditional clothing called “hanbok” and bow to the older family members to pay respect or honor them. After the children bow to the adults, they receive money from them. Girl’s hanbok consists of “jeogori”, a blouse shirt or a jacket, and “chima”, a wrap-around skirt, which is usually worn full. The boy’s hanbok consists of “jeogori” and loose-fitting pants. The hanbok is very colorful and is often worn with other accessories like “norigae” which hangs from the coat strings and can be passed down by family members.

A traditional food that Koreans eat on the New Years holiday is called “tteokguk” which is a type of soup with rice cake. You can choose your toppings; egg, dried seaweed, kimchi, and meat. Koreans say that after you finish your tteokguk, you are one year older.

-Jasmine Lee ‘20, Lidia Shin ‘20, Amanda Hong ‘20

Snow, Sports, and Kpop: The 2018 Winter Olympics

(otherwise known as “Man Watches the Olympics and Enjoys It”)

February 15, 2018

On Friday, February 9, 2018 the Winter Olympics began. The Winter Olympics are being held currently in Pyeongchang, South Korea and last for about 2-3 weeks. Friday, there were no events to watch, but it was the opening ceremony.

On the whole, the open ceremony was enjoyable to watch. I am personally not a fan of the opening ceremonies, as I can find them kinda goofy (I remember the London olympics had people mining in gas masks if memory serves me right) but they aren’t bad. The use of drones and technology was interesting, and it made it enjoyable to watch. One interesting thing was that the North and South Korean competitors came out at once. I found this interesting, and at least somewhat relieving that war between the two Koreas is not imminent. I asked my Korean friends how they felt about it, and I got many different answers. One thought it represented “Unityee”, another was uneasy thinking they may have another agenda, while one said it was “BS” (BolShevik). I mildly enjoyed the opening ceremony, and while I found somethings strange (Gangnam style during the opening, BTS song which I may review) I thought the live performances were good.

But that out of the way, let’s talk about the interesting part of the Olympics: Sports. Although many countries do not send people to the winter Olympics (Spain with its 50 million people send 5, which is 5 times the amount that Luxembourg sent,) there are still countries that are ̶f̶r̶o̶z̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶t̶e̶l̶a̶n̶d̶s̶ great places to visit in the winter, like Canada or Switzerland, that send hundreds of athletes to compete. I personally find sports like luge and downhill interesting, because seeing the raw speeds that those athletes can hit is amazing. Other favorites are the biathlon and skating, because the race part about it makes it tense, and it is very skillful. I can only imagine if I tried the luge that I would hit one corner and just wipe out. I tend to not watch stuff involving judges, as it can be very subjective. With stuff relying on time there is always someone clearly doing better than another person, but with figure skating, each performance can be objectively better or worse than the others.

In Conclusion, I highly recommend that you watch the Olympics. With the wide range of sports it seems like there is something for every type of person.

-Nicolas Eisenberg ’18

Man Realizes Jace TMS is Unbanned and Questions Life

February 13, 2018

Yesterday, February 12, 2018, Jace the Mind Sculptor was officially unbanned from Modern. Jace the Mind Sculptor, a planeswalker card from the set, Worldwake is currently worth around 150 dollars, 150 bucks for a single card, AAAAAAAAAAAA. The reason for this price is that Jace’s 4 different abilities are all very usable and versatile, especially its ultimate ability, where your library is exiled and your hand becomes your library, AH!!! Because of its unexpected powers, it was banned in the playing format Modern for Magic the Gathering. However, for some reason, Wizards of the Coast decide to unban which it will see tons o’ play in the format.

-Dean Kim ’18

BTS Takes Over the Music Industry

February 13, 2018

One of the most well-known things about Korea is K-pop. It has gotten famous in almost every continent possible. K-pop has influenced other countries’ cultures, and every year, conventions called Kcon are held. Among the many boy groups, girl groups, bands, and soloists, one of the most well-known and liked K-pop groups is BTS.

BTS stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which means “bulletproof boy scouts” in Korean. They debuted in 2013 with the album called Skool Luv Affair. Although they started off as a small, unknown group, they gained fame when they released their Wings album. Now, they are well-known all over the world. Fans from the U.S., Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and more are always competing to buy tickets for BTS’s world tours when they come into their towns. They are so famous that they attended the Billboard Music Awards and won the Top Social Artist Award in 2017. A few months later, they performed their, at the time, new title song DNA at the American Music Awards. Last but not least, on the most recent New Year’s Eve, they performed DNA once again in the annual Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Party.

But why am I writing about BTS? Well, to start off, I am absolutely in love with these guys. My friends often tease me about it, but it doesn’t bother me… (that much…) I proudly call myself an ARMY, the official fandom name. While my colleague Nick Eisenberg watches Not Today and get confused, I sit down in front of the wide-screen computer with my jaw dropped on the floor, fangirling as I watch that music video for the millionth time. Of course, fangirling isn’t the only thing I do. I help others understand why this pop group is amazing and what the meanings behind the songs are. In fact, I’m the colleague that Nick wrote about in his article. I helped him understand the meaning of the song Not Today.

Interviews with many ARMY’s on the busy streets of Korea were released months ago, each answering the question “Why do you like BTS so much?” And, to many international fans’ surprise, they all had the same exact answer: they show their thoughts and opinions through their music. In Korea, there are many other K-pop groups, small and big. However, not many actually produce their own songs or try to convey a message that is personally coming from them. But when BTS releases songs like 21st Century Girl and Pied Piper, listeners that understand the lyrics are captivated by the songs.

-Hannah Kim ’18

Music Review: Man Watches BTS and Questions Life

February 8, 2018

In an effort to branch out of my comfort zone, I, Nicolas Eisenberg, decided to listen to one song made by Korean pop group BTS. And it was most definitely an interesting experience. I highly recommend once in awhile to branch out of what you usually listen to, because you could discover something that you may actually like. But back to the story

I decided to choose the song “Not Today” because it was the first song that I saw. It was a bizarre trip of backup and changing locations and it appears to be trying to tell some type of story where the members die or something in the video, but when taking with one of my colleagues, they say that it is a song about not giving up. I couldn’t really tell what was going on, and this is partially due to 80% of the song being in Korean.

Now, onto the meat and potatoes of the video: the music. Oddly enough, some 20% of the song is in english. I personally find this a bizarre choice, as it makes it hard to figure out what the core demographic is. Is it South Koreans? This makes the most sense since BTS is Korean, but then why include English? Either way I don’t feel qualified to judge it, because I need to have a translation sheet on me to understand the song.

-Nicolas Eisenberg ’19

Buy your Yearbook Now!

January 15, 2018

Yearbook Pre-sale HAPPENING NOW!

The cost of the 2018 full-color yearbook is $35 during the pre-sale.

All orders must be paid in cash or check to: “Walter Reed Middle School” at the student store.

Or if you would like to use a credit card to purchase your yearbook please visit:

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Thinking About Animal Welfare

December 15, 2017

Animal cruelty is something America struggles with today. It is a well known problem around the world, and it still happens everywhere. Although there have been many bans and laws pushed to keep the animals safe, some are still suffering. It’s time people take a stand. Some animal rights groups are pushing legislators to pass more animal cruelty prevention laws. People from their own homes can help by making a call to their senator everyday to remind them of the importance of animal welfare. Ms. Dagilis’ 4th and 5th period English Language Arts classes tackled this topic for an essay writing assignment, please read some of their thoughts on the subject below. – Alexis Kotrsombat’18

Animals on factory farms are treated horribly. They are mutilated and confined in spaces too small for them. There is evidence behind these claims. It comes from On the Table: Profiles inCourage on Animal Welfare by Michael Pollan, and it states, “It is routine practice to cram laying hens into cages too small that the birds are forced to cannibalize their cage mates. The solution to this ‘vice’ – as the Department of Agriculture calls counter-productive behaviors in livestock – is to snip off their beaks with red hot knifes.” This is only one of the instances. Legislators must make more laws to stop these heinous practices. – Dexton Ratchford’18

A while back the Chicago City Council banned the sale of foie gras. But is that enough? THere are many farms in the world that still keep their animals in poor conditions. The ban of foie gras was possibly one of the easiest to implement, given that only two small farms produce the entire U. S. foie gras product, and only .0000001% of Americans consume it. according to Michael Pollan. Also according to Michael Pollan, there are some farms where “the solution for the “vice” of tail biting among hogs driven mad by close confinement is to snip off their tails.” There are a few organizations that are against the idea of animal abuse. One being PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). They believe that they should step up and do what’s right by pushing more people to fight for animal rights. They have also won important concessions from the fast food industry, giving the animals from the farms that they buy from more living space. Obviously the animal’s rights aren’t going to change overnight, that is why the peple should take a stand and fight for animal rights together. – Alexa Kotrsombat’18

Ever thought of what chickens and pigs go through just so you can have your bacon and eggs each morning? The truth is absolutely saddening but it’s what happens to the majority of animals being raised for people to consume. It is not okay that the law protects farmers and industries that hurt animals. This will not change overnight, but it will change over time. Legislators should not stop at foie gras, but continue until we are sure every animal, especially the ones living on farms, are being treated kindly and not being shoved inside tiny cages. Together, if we all take a stand, we can put an end to animal cruelty. – Angie Marquez’18

Animal cruelty is something people take for grant; they don’t truly understand how the animals feel. Animals have feelings for their lives. – Brandon Cho’18

When it comes to animal cruelty, everyone has a different opinion, because it’s not all black and white. Recently, it has come to the legislature’s attention that something should be done. But what should they do, take away our source of fresh meat? Legislators should pass laws that prevent animal cruelty to a certain extent, stop mistreating animals but don’t cut off our entire meat supply. Although this would cut into the industrial agriculture’s profits, it’s a great first step to minimizing animal abuse.

– Kimmy Chavez’ 18

PTSA Reflections Art Contest Winners

December 15, 2017

Congratulations to the PTSA Reflections Art Contest District Winners who were chosen to represent Reed at the County level:

Debate Tournament and Review

December 12, 2017

The 2017 Southern California Junior Forensics League (SCJFL) 2nd Quarter Debate Tournament took place on December 9, 2017 at East Los Angeles College. Three Walter Reed students participated. Jaden Stewart and Scott Lee competed in Public Forum, winning two rounds out of four. This was very good for their first debate tournament! Lydia Qin competed in Lincoln Douglas, and got third place. Congratulations to everyone who participated!

-Lydia Qin ’18

Questionnaire for Students

So Cal Wildfires: How it Affects Us at School

December 11, 2017

On Tuesday, December 5th, during fourth period, an announcement could be heard broadcast throughout the school saying that the basketball courts and field would be closed for lunch because of unsuitable air. They advised students to stay inside the cafeteria or auditorium, and also cancelled the faculty meeting that was scheduled that afternoon. Ash blanketed the floor of the pavilion, and people could smell the smoke in the air.

The next day, Wednesday, the air had cleared slightly, but the ground was still covered in ash. During sixth period another announcement was made saying that on Thursday and Friday, school would be closed due to the fires and the safety of the students. All over the school, children rejoiced and were excited to have a four-day weekend. Although this may seem good, I’m guessing that we will have to have two extra days of school to make up for the time we lost? Also, is this a prediction of what is to come, might there often be fires near us, close to our school? I hope everyone stayed safe this past weekend, and that the smoke and ash are clearing.

Turkey Bowl at Reed

I like how the whole school comes together for the Turkey Bowl, I try my hardest and I know I am going to do well. – Jasper Shokrian’20

Turkey Bowl is exciting because it gives a moment where everyone is watching you and also puts competition into the football game against other people. Green Team is always better than Yellow Team. My favorite sport is still basketball. – Janden Son’120

It’s fun to play in the Turkey Bowl because there is a band and cheerleaders and everyone is watching you. If I have a big play, it makes me happy when everyone cheers. Football helps me learn how to focus, like when we have a huddle and call the plays, and be a better athlete overall. – Jadon Wells’20

Transformational Tuesdays: Time To Be Kind

November 14th, November 28th, and December 5th, 2017

Art of Peace Club members gave out golden tickets to students observed being kind on Tuesday November 14th, November 28th, and December 5th! The tickets were redeemable at lunch for a chocolate.

During PE I saw people cheering on and encouraging people to run faster – Harper Culliton’19

I saw a boy help show a new kid around, who was sitting all lonely by himself. – Hannah Benavides’19

Reflection by the Art of Peace Club project managers: The goal of our “Time to be Kind Tuesdays” is to promote kindness at Walter Reed. Last Tuesday, November 28th, was a huge success because of all the kind and helpful students at Walter Reed! Art of Peace collected 222 Golden Tickets! The line stretched all the way to the C-Arcade, and students waited patiently for their chocolate. With Wolf Den Student Reps handing out the golden tickets anonymously, only truly kind students got a ticket for their good deed.

Yesterday was a chocolate exchange. The way it works is you get a golden ticket from a Wolf Den member or from the Intentional Kindness Booth. The way you get one is you have to do something kind, After you get a ticket you turn it in on Tuesday at lunch time. There is a table near the auditorium and at that table you turn in your golden ticket for a candy cane, chocolate, or lemon bar. – Esteban Martell’20 and Noah Ramirez’20

Intentional Kindness Booth

Our most recent “Time To Be Kind Tuesday” was another success! In addition to our original booth we had an “Intentional Kindness” booth. This booth let kids without a golden ticket who were being kind get a ticket. A student would walk up to our booth, we would hand them a purple ticket, they would write down their name, the kind act that they plan to do, and the future date of this kind act. We posted the ticket on the calendar on that future date, and handed the student their golden ticket. Students at Walter Reed had to come up with a kind act, and, even if they don’t follow through and do the kind act, they at least had to think about it and come up with a kind act that they could do. – Harper Culliton’19 and Ava Higginson’19

Update December 12, 2017

Golden Ticket Exchange

On Tuesday we had a booth where you traded a Golden Ticket for a candy. When kids are kind, they get a Golden Ticket. You have to write down what you did on the back of the ticket with your name. For example, here are some of he kids who did good acts of kindness: Ruby helped a hurt friend; Victor picked up other people’s trash; Madalene saw someone trip and took them to a teacher; Brandon saw a kid playing alone and offered to play with him. We feel this activity is a good thing for the school because it makes students want to do something kind. – Esteban Martell’20, Erick Mata’20, and Noah Ramirez’20

7th Grade Fall Concert

On Thursday, October 12, 2017, the seventh graders of the Walter Reed Middle School orchestra had a fall concert. It was an opportunity for seventh graders to show off what they have learned with both Mr. Rosen and Ms. O’Rourke. There were performances from the winds band, the strings orchestra, jazz band, choir, and show choir. To get an inside view of the concert, let’s hear the perspective of an audience member.

In your opinion, how was the concert? The concert was a masterpiece. I was able to instantly tell that all the ensembles really devoted their time and effort. Their music had a large impact on how I viewed instrumentals.

What was your favorite feature of the concert? My favorite feature was the strings orchestra because they had an outstanding performance as opposed to all other performances. The musicians were all in sync, and therefore, they stood out the most.

What was your least favorite feature of the concert? I didn’t have a least favorite feature. At least, none of the “mistakes” were evident.

If you were to give the concert an overall grade (A, B, C, D, or F), what would you give it and why? I would give this concert an A because the performance showed that the students were well-taught and knew how to act professional. They knew exactly what to do, making it comfortable to watch.

Special thanks to Ally Song who lent her time for us to interview her.

Again, please visit our holiday concerts that are going to be taking place on December 12th and December 14th. More importantly, please continue to support all members of the Friends of Reed Music association.

-Kriste An’ 20 and Mina Kim’ 20

Music Review: OK Computer

November 14, 2017

This is a quicky review considering the amount of praise and love this album has already received. This year is the 20th birthday of Radiohead’s OK Computer. Many people claim this album is one of the greatest pieces of music in the 90s. The album both sonically and lyrically have been praised. The album laid out much of the foundation for Radiohead’s later works. I came back to this record and relistened to it for the past 3 days and man, the production is top notch. Even after 2 decades, the record’s production is so clean and precise that it could have been released today. The record was so flattering at the time considering that other bands were beating the dead horse of grunge over and over again. Grunge rock was starting to fade from mainstream music. What made Radiohead so unique was they way they approached rock and roll. There was no other band at the time with such commercial success who could fuse elements of rock and roll, nasally and haunting vocals with parts of electronic music. Of course, Jonny Greenwood’s aggressive guitar style is still imbedded into the record. Til this day, it is one of my personal favorites of all time. Happy belated birthday.

Spirit Week October 30 – November 3

Buy a pink bracelet for $1 in the C-arcade. 50% of proceeds go to the breast cancer research foundation.

Wear uniform bottoms

Tuesday: Halloween Dress-Up Day

Wear your favorite costume

No masks

No replica/plastic weapons

No inflatable costumes

No face painting/makeup

Wednesday: Prostate Cancer Awareness Day

Wear light blue to show your support

Buy a blue bracelet for $1 in the C-arcade. 50% of proceeds go to the prostate cancer research foundation.

Wear uniform bottoms

Thursday: Sports Day

Wear your favorite sports team jersey

Wear uniform bottoms

Friday: Pajama Day

Wear your favorite pair of pajamas

Sweatpants are okay

No spaghetti straps/tank tops

No blankets or slippers

School appropriate shoes

Music Review: A Moon Shaped Pool

October 25, 2017

A Mune Sahped Poole

Radiohead, the alternative, art rock group hailing from the UK released a studio album in 2016, titled “A Moon Shaped Pool”, an album that was a personal favorite of mine in my list of the best albums of 2016. Radiohead’s music has always been abstract and very much conceptual. The band has been one of my admired. The UK band was put on the radar with their sophomore album, “OK Computer” in 1997. Their previous efforts were based in the grunge rock scene including hits such as “Creep” from their album “Pablo Honey”, the band’s biggest hit to date. Radiohead’s sophomore record, “OK Computer” was what really put them in their place in the music industry as well as putting them in the spotlight. Many people call it Radiohead’s best work along with one of the greatest albums of the 1990s. Their previous record from 2011 “The King of Limbs” received mixed reviews from critics. Many criticized the strange and synthetic production on the record along with some disappointing melodies and lyrics. Much of the drums, guitar, and bass were looped constantly throughout the songs. The album still had some WONDERFUL (no jokes intended) tracks including “Lotus Flower”, “Codex”, and “Feral”. Going into this new record, the band based on production seemed minimalistic and simple and could be easily used as background music when falling asleep or feeling creative. The singles released originally seemed to go into a softer, more mellow direction compared to their previous albums. The sounds that Radiohead bring onto this album could easily be dismissed as boring, but please don’t let this fool you, this album is extremely beautiful and well-produced. Thom Yorke’s vocals have a natural chemistry with what the rest of the band brings on this LP. Some of the songs on the record have been played at Radiohead shows for years and years and have finally been re recorded and organized into a nice fashion. The lyrics on this record is subtle and feels like Thom did a lazy job on his part as a songwriter, but what Thom has to say is compact, but still conveys a message. After five years of not putting music, Radiohead has returned with a subtle, quiet, but still deeply moving record.

The album starts off with the song “Burn the Witch”, the first single that was released. On this song, Jonny Greenwood, the lead guitarist of the band brings these nice string arrangements using a technique called col legno, where the stick of the bow is used instead of the hair. Thom sings some eerie vocals that contribute to its beautiful percussion. Just from the first track, you can tell that the band has taken a softer direction in their music. The electronic bass that was added into the song was a bit strange at first, but since has grown on me. The second track is titled “Daydreaming” where the band takes a step back from their traditional sound of guitars and drums and take into consideration a ballad. The song opens with these bright twinkly bell sounds. The guitar seems subtle, but brings a bit of the twinkly sounds to life. Later the song grows larger with piano arpeggios and strange chord progressions that somehow work nicely. The song seems to discuss Thom’s relationship with his wife and her death in 2016 from cancer. There are some odd vocal manipulations such as where Thom literally reverses the lyric, “Half of my life” and the song ends as if it was intentionally left unfinished at the end. The third song on the album “Deck Dark” is a personal favorite. Here Jonny Greenwood plays the pretty piano arpeggios. The song starts with some electronic drums. The song at the 1:24 mark opens to these background vocals with clear influences from gospel. The song later opens to a very open and spacious sound at around the 1:30 mark with some piano chords being played with slight variations. The guitar portion of the song plays a more rhythmic role and seems to go unnoticed in the background of the song. Later when there is around a minute left, some of the nice bass parts finally seem to be heard that bring a nice low end. The guitar continues to use some strange guitar effects that seem to somehow mix surprisingly well. The song much later comes in with some clean guitar chords being played. At the end, Jonny Greenwood still has to play his role and starts playing his naturally unclean and sort in a of misfitted guitar style. The song seems to discuss regret and feelings of sorrow. The fourth track on the album is titled “Desert Island Disk”. The song starts with some colorful acoustic guitar work in the beginning. Phil the drummer brings in a sort of jazz vibe to the sound with the snare and bass drums.

Another favorite on the album is “Ful Stop”. The song was again sort of abandons the traditional rock sound of their previous records and starts quietly with some scattered guitar notes with an echo effect on them. The song slowly grows into a bigger more of arcing sound. The guitars play some parts that really bring the creepy and odd feeling to the entire song. Thom brings some of creepy and eerie vocals on the track with some lyrics about foul-tasting medicine. The guitar starts to really kick in the middle of the song with the return of Jonny’s aggression style. Thom constantly sings this one line about messing up everything over and over again with some tacky instrumentals. There are some nice bass licks played in the song. The track seems a bit reminiscent of their older days in “The King of Limbs” or “In Rainbows”. The quiet drums on the track mix nicely. This album just doesn’t stop getting better. The next track “Glass Eyes” has some beautiful orchestral arrangements with the cellos and basses being heard along with the high-pitched violins. This track would not be the same without Jonny’s string arrangements. The song later blossoms into an intricate shape of string instruments along Thom’s sort of raspy vocals, and the piano intro heard throughout the song. The seventh track is called “Identikit”, where the bass and guitar riff that is palm muted is played together and interwoven with each other that brings a sudden snappy and elegant sound along with the drums. There are some very airy and light notes sung by the lead singer. The song once again ends with a guitar solo that uses some sort of scatter effect that really brings the track out. The 3rd to last track, “Present Tense” is probably one of the best with the percussion sounds and some more eerie vocals that sort of drowns you into a huge wall of sound. Thom utilizes echo effects again to bring some of the best vocals on the entire album. The final track on the album is a song that Radiohead performed with acoustic guitars all the way back starting in the late 1990s. The song was finally re recorded. The song starts with some beautiful piano notes played. Thom sings with a certain rasp in his voice with lyrics about a crazy kitten smile and stuff. The lyrics seem to discuss about a relationship that is falling apart. The lyrics are super minimalistic, but the pedaled piano part creates a sad moment on the album. By the time you have finished the entire you will feel different. The album ends with a bang. After listening to the entire record, you will never be the same.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST me OPINIONz IT IS OKAY TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT THIS ALBUM OR MULTIPLE ALBUMS THAT me WILL REVIEW

HA!

-Dean Kim ‘18

Who’s YOUR favorite teacher?

October 24, 2017

Congratulations to a few of our favorites at WRMS!

Forty-nine students voted and there was a tie for 1st place: Congratulations to Mr. Spelman and Ms. Lawrence. Thanks for voting!

– Julian Dohi ‘19, Daniel Han ‘19, Jun Woo Shin ‘19

October 10, 2017

We have an outstanding staff here at Walter Reed. Please click on the Google Form below and choose your favorite. We will announce the outcome on the Reed Review next week. Click Here to Vote

-Julian Dohi ’19, Daniel Han ’19, and Jun Woo Shin ’19

Meet the High Schools Night

October 10, 2017

On Wednesday, October 4, 2017, Walter Reed hosted Meet the High Schools Night! This event began at 5:00 p.m. in the Auditorium. There were over fifty public, charter, and private high schools in attendance. There were also different food trucks selling delicious food from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., which allowed families and presenters to enjoy a bite to eat and help raise money for our school. This was a good opportunity for sixth and seventh graders to get an idea of all the high schools out there. And, for eighth graders, this was a chance to learn more about the high schools they have been thinking of, and narrow down their top choices.

I spoke with Julian Dohi ‘19 about his experience at Meet the High Schools Night. He said that it was nice how there were different students representing their high schools. The students described what their experiences at their high schools were like; socially and academically. He visited North Hollywood Highly Gifted Magnet, Taft High School, and Harvard-Westlake High School. He thought that all of the schools he visited were very interesting and inviting. He said that he would definitely recommend going to Meet the High Schools Night next year, and it was a great chance to meet the high schools he had been thinking about.

I hope that everyone had the chance to make it to Meet the High Schools Night and find a high school that was right for them!

-Sarah Buckley ‘20

Music Review: Wanderfall Wunderfool

October 10, 2017

Hello folks. This is Dean Kim and Nicolas Eisenberg, two students that have a deep appreciation and love of music, who have decided to write and publish reviews on albums. More reviews will be expected from us. Music is a passion that we both share and that we would like to share.

The Killers, an alternative/indie rock outfit from Nevada, have released a new album called “Wonderful Wonderful”. Their previous record was 5 years ago, quite a long absence for a musical group. It gained generally positive reviews, but was not their greatest creation. Both of us found the record to be an okay effort from the band. Their new album is however a revival and you can see some hints of disco, funk, punk, and new wave. The Killers exploded on the scene of rock and roll with their debut album, “Hot Fuss” in 2004. The album garnered praise for its funkiness and new wave song. It was also a commercial success hitting number 1 on the Billboard Hot 200. Their songs, draw a similar sound to bands like Joy Division or maybe the Smiths, but the meaning of the lyrics and the general sound of the band draws a wider variety of genres.

The album opens up with the title track “Wonderful Wonderful”, a beautiful song layered with bright synths with obvious disco and new wave influences. The band sounds the best it has been in years. Flower’s vocals are quite beautifully done with some slight and quiet R&B influences. The bass intro and riff in the beginning that is brought to the table fits nicely into the mix and allows for the track to flourish based off of the inception of the track. The entire new Killers album is a mess, but a beautiful blossoming one. The next track is “The Man”, a quite funky track is very obviously inspired by disco, but still has enough of its guitars and bass to make it a solid rock track. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the track with it’s fun sound. The falsetto vocals from Flower really mixes the song nicely. The lyrics on the other hand are lackluster and mediocre, nothing very special.

“Rut”, the third track on the album, is most likely the worst song in the album, being a charing shift of tone from the quick and catchy “The Man”. It features this ridiculously bouncy beat and some gospel influence but it feels unnatural. It is like trying to mix water and oil, it just does not work well or nicely. The gospel influence with the pop drumbeat does seems awkward. It doesn’t feel like a Killers song, it just feels long and overly melodramatic. It just seems to similar in style to songs of other bands like U2 or KC and the Sunshine Band. Sure, maybe the lyrical content of the track is better, but the over sound with the unnecessary auto tune just seems to drive the band in a direction that they did not want for the record. It almost seems as if the band tries to be anthemic in multiple ways with this record but fails miserably in multiple directions.

Another good song on Wonderful Wonderful is “Tyson vs. Douglas”. It is focused on Flower’s personal experience watching the fight of Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas in 1990. It deals with topics that even the greatest will fall eventually and that nothing lasts forever. The song is upbeat and very catchy, yet lyrics take on a much darker meaning. It takes advantage of bright 80s style synthesizers that bring back the nostalgia of the old days along with some guitars on distortion that kick in later in the song. The track is made even more interesting with having the recording of the fight play before and after the song. The song, “The Calling” is a poor example of a religiously-themed song just going in the wrong direction. Some portions of the song are taken partially from the Bible, more specifically the book of Matthew. It seems sort of unnecessary and does not seem to really fit into the theme of the song, yet even better the album.

Even with some good tracks, no album is perfect, and just like any album, this one has its problems. The songs on the record seem to have this extremely polished sound and is sometimes ridiculously goes into a pop disco direction forgetting what a band is supposed to mean. Sometimes, it also feels like the record is centered around the Flowers just too much, the rest of the members feel absent or touring members when performing live, Sometimes, it feels that the band isn’t a band. Also, the influences on this record so crystal clear and obvious, if the vocals were stripped off, and the instrumentals were just playing, you would have really difficult time trying to differentiate what band is playing the songs on the record. The band had obvious artists they were looking up to when recording. The messages brought to this table are good and very emotional in a sense, yet the method in which the band delivers them comes short and is often strange. Like we said, the Killers try to be anthemic in certain songs like “Rut” or “Some Kind of Love” yet in a lot of ways they sort of come off as cheesy and funnily inaccurate for the most part. Most tracks are not bad, but are not good either. However, it is still surprisingly a decent follow up compared to their albums in their discography.

The Killers have been at for a while now, this seems to be there most mature record. The seem to dabble topics such as religion, depression, sorrow, hope, and love, basically a huge array of human emotions. Just like their other albums, the songs are are upbeat and catchy, but contain lyrics about sorrow, that contrast with themselves. Overall, we think that this new addition to the Killers discography contains some ups and downs, highs and lows, and overall is more good than bad.

Overall Score: 62/100; Good record

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST OUR OPINIONS IT IS OKAY TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT THIS ALBUM OR MULTIPLE ALBUMS THAT WE WILL REVIEW

Help the World

October 3, 2017

Wonder why there is so many hurricanes in the USA? Well, the Tropic of Capricorn and Cancer is growing bigger, since global warming is heating the oceans. All of us can help by getting rid of litter, by picking up trash, and by using trash cans properly. Also, we can remember the three Rs to reduce trash: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Let’s help the world become a cleaner and more convenient world!

-Sean Kim ’20

Clean & Green Club

October 2, 2017

Mrs. Holbrook has agreed to be the teacher sponsor for our new club. Its purpose is to help clean up around the school and to keep kids aware of climate change. Two of our activities are once a month after school clean-ups (with free desserts) and a showing of Al Gore’s 2017 climate change movie, “An Inconvenient Sequel”. We can also explore other climate change related activities. For example, we might organize a Heal the Bay beach cleanup, and we may possibly raise money for climate change improvements to our campus.

We meet once a week on Friday at lunch in Ms. Holbrook’s room, and have one cleanup every month after school. The movie will be shown after school for all parents and students who are interested. The club is open to all grades at Walter Reed. The club elects a president or two co-presidents to start the meeting and send out emails. We hope to have a coordinator for each grade. Katherine Bernstein is President, Rachel Leftwich is Co-President. Isabella Bernstein is one of two 6th Grade representatives. Ana Cruz is the Secretary. The rest of the club’s officers are to be decided.

Reed Alum and Hydrodynamicist Leah Sosa’97 visited Ms. Jung’s 8th grade science classes last Friday, to share her experiences in college and on the job in the STEM field of Hydrodynamics. Following are some excerpts from student responses, thanking Leah for her visit:

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come talk to us! It was very cool to see what a former IHPer can do with her life and it made me think about my future. The Webb Institute seems like an amazing school with an incredible experience, and it is very helpful that it is tuition free. I also thought that it was very interesting to see one of the experiments you did. Science experiments are super fun at school, and to see them being applied to real life is awesome! Your presentation made me dream of big things to accomplish when I get older and have a job. – Amelie Missig’18

Your presentation showed me that if you focus on your academic career, you can go to new and unexpected places, especially if you are unsure what you want to do later in life. I was shown first-hand that, as opportunities arise, your expectations and plans can drastically change – even lead you to another country. – Enzo Banal’18

It really opened my eyes about thinking for my future. Like, which college I want to go to, what I should major in, and what job I want. Your section about Webb Institute made me remember that there are schools other than UCLA, Stanford, Harvard, and other popular schools. Your presentation, how you really were not sure what you wanted, reminded me of myself. I am going to research jobs and colleges to get ready. – Caira Paredes’18

I was fascinated by the fact that you went to a college that had a waived tuition, so that you would not have to pay for college. The presentation made me think about how I will soon go to visit colleges and universities, and it will only be a matter of time before I start applying for them. – Jeffrey Kwon’18

Peanut Butter and Jelly Drive Report

Recently, the National Junior Honors Society has participated in the Peanut Butter and Jelly Drive. NJHS is currently partnered with the North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry. In an attempt to help the people that are homeless, unemployed, or underemployed, the Food Pantry creates and bags foods and groceries for these people in need and distributes them along the community. The North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry is a non-profit, non-religious organization with goals to make a difference in our neighborhood. Each year, they help feed 20,000-30,000 families and individuals. Each bag donated contains various items, such as cereal, beans, rice, soup, peanut butter, two cans of protein like beef and tuna fish, and stapled goods. The food pantry also provides the families with fresh produce harvested by nearby families and farms, and baked goods like bread and bagels from local participating bakeries.

To do our part and help this amazing organization, NJHS has made a large contribution to the Food Pantry. A small group of seventh and eighth graders was created for this project. We all got together and prepared, packaged, and delivered peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We were divided into four organized, efficient stations that each had its own job. For protection and safety reasons, everyone was required to wear plastic gloves and an apron. There were people spreading Skippy peanut butter, Welch’s grape, strawberry, raspberry, and apricot jelly, cutting and bagging sandwiches, and packaging the PB&J donations. By the time we were finished, we had stuffed four large boxes full of the sandwiches. We then walked to the food bank, located off Moorpark, to deliver the PB&J.

Speaking on behalf of the entire NJHS community, this was truly an amazing experience. We loved the thought of helping others in need, and making a difference. This was an overall fun and educational experience, and we are really glad to have been able to take part in this project. We hope that NJHS will be able to participate in many more projects that are similar to this, to help and benefit the Food Pantry and our neighborhood.

Brianna Lenett’18 and Lily Castiel’18

Student Council Election RESULTS

On September 6, 2017, the results for the Walter Reed 2017-2018 student council elections were revealed. Despite everyone’s ideas that would benefit the school in numerous amount of ways, there is only one person elected for each position.

On September 12, I interviewed Irene Kim, our new Vice President. She presented her thoughts on the victory as well as the future of the school.:

Q: How do you feel about your position in the Student Council?

A: Good. I feel good about it. I was really intimidated by the other candidates, but I felt relieved in the morning when I found out that I had been elected vice president.

Q: Is there anything you specifically want to do for the school?

A: I want to make all the students feel at home at Walter Reed Middle School. Their voices should be heard and be part of decisions we make.

Q: How are you gonna make sure it happens?

A: I’m thinking about having one or two days a month, in which students verbally express their ideas and feelings to grade level representatives, who will report to the officers.

Q: Do you have any ideas to make the school better?

A: I want to make the spirit weeks a lot more creative and organized so that the students can express their personalities in an easier way.

-Hannah Kim ’18

Poor Houston

Hurricane Harvey has been merciless to it. Good thing we are donating clothes, money, and school supplies. The Walter Reed community has donated a bunch to the Texas’ school districts, thanks to the special connection. Thank you to all the people who donated these items. However, beware, we may have to donate to a Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Jose donation funds. So get your clean clothes, allowance, and school supplies for the victims of the hurricanes!

-Sean Kim ‘20

After the destructive hurricane hit and flooded Texas, Walter Reed Middle School has taken donations for the school district in Texas. We collected donations at back to school night and than for a week after that. After receiving a week of donations, over 100 boxes of supplies have been donated to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey! Thank you to everyone who donated towards the cause!

-Sophie Hartwick ’19

This past week Texas was struck by a tropical storm called Hurricane Harvey. It left thousands of homes flooded and evacuated. Many families had to evacuate to go to a safer place. Fortunately, many families were left unharmed from this tropical storm. Hurricane Harvey has left many people with hope and anger along with sadness as they watch their homes destroyed.

-Angela Yang ’20

Solar Eclipse

On Monday August 21, 2017, a solar eclipse occurred. All of North America had the opportunity to view this amazing astronomical event. During a solar eclipse, the moon passes

between the sun and Earth and blocks all or part of the sun for up to three hours, from beginning to end, as viewed from a given location, according to an article written by NASA astronomers. However, a total solar eclipse can only be viewed at a location along the path of totality. The last time the U.S. viewed a total eclipse was back in 1979. Unfortunately, California was not able to witness totality, but students at Walter Reed were able to view a partial solar eclipse.

In class, many students used proper eyewear, and used it to safely view the eclipse. A family also donated NASA-approved eclipse glasses for students to use as well. The solar eclipse lasted from around 9:05a to 11:44a, and the peak of the eclipse was at 10:22a.

The solar eclipse was awe-inspiring in every way, and we are grateful to be able to witness such an amazing event.

-Caden Kang ’19 and Nathan Kang ‘20

Campaigning for Student Council

September 11, 2017

Last week, students campaigned for various student council positions. Such positions include grade level representatives, treasurer, historian, secretary, vice president, and president. Student council is an important part of our school community, for it gives the students a chance to voice their concerns and suggestions. To campaign, the candidates put up posters, created stamps, and wrote speeches to present to the school. Like all the previous years, the candidates made their speeches to the voters in the auditorium during lunch a few days before voting. All candidates did wonderful jobs with their speeches and made very convincing reasons as to why the voters should vote them.

-Camilla Martinez ‘18

Heat Wave!

September 8, 2017

Last week, there was an excessive heat warning. This record breaking heat wave will cause North Hollywood to have temperatures in the hundreds. Because of this, the air conditioned auditorium was open during lunch so students don’t have to each lunch in the heat. Plus, most PE classes went to the gym because it is too hot outside. Remember to drink lots of water and to wear sunblock!

-Lydia Qin ’18

TechTrek Scholarship from AAUW

Olivia Esparra’18 and Andrea Garcia’18 were awarded a TechTrek Scholarship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for a week-long STEM workshop on the campus of U.C. Santa Barbara this summer.

AAUW’s mission is to help girls find their passion for high tech careers. From Olivia and Andrea: “We can’t wait for the week to come. Also can’t wait to learn new things with powerful women.”

Olivia: “I can’t wait to become better in science and math. I think that this experience would change who I am as a person. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t wait!!”

Andrea: “Science has always been a favorite subject of mine and knowing that I will be investigating further on it makes me really excited!”

Dear Walter

May 25, 2017

Editor’s note: Remember our Spring Fair Chain of Kindness Project? Reed students wrote down intentional acts of kindness on colored paper, then Art of Peace Club members linked the submissions together to grow a very, very long chain of kindness. Our chain of kindness now wraps around the cafeteria, library, and the lower B Building hallway. We wrapped the school in kindness. Thank you Reed!

Art of Peace club members read every single link. Here are some submissions that did not make it onto our kindness chain. Art of Peace Club wished to respond:

“I wrote a cheat sheet.”

“I let someone copy off of me.”

“I let ________ copy my homework.”

The wise #peace #squad says:

Though you may think this is kind, what you are doing isn’t actually helping the person. By giving them (or yourself) a cheat sheet, you’re not allowing them to grow and learn, not giving them the experience. Handing someone a cheat sheet decreases their ability to learn.

What will happen when you’re not in your friend’s class? Cheating will become a habit for them. They won’t take the time to learn the skills themselves.

Cheating is just not the right thing to do. And what if one or both of you get caught?

If you were pressured into letting someone cheat off of you, stand up for yourself and tell them no, or offer to help them instead of cheating.

Remember: it is always okay to ask for extra help or tutoring if you need it. That’s what school—and our fantastic Reed community, is for!

“I complimented an ugly person.”

Ay ay ay! The #peace #squad says:

You say the person is ‘ugly’ physically, but really what you said was ugly emotionally.

Yep. And also, how about taking the time to get to know others on more than a surface level? Every single one of us has awesome and unique skills and abilities – and you never know when you’ll make a great new friend.

Remember: true beauty is on the inside. And it is essential to practice being civil and kind, you never know what anyone else is going through.

“I work every other day tirelessly and then on my off days I do projects. I don’t have time for random acts of kindness.”

Hmmm. The #peace #squad says:

You always have time for kindness. Any second you get, give someone a true compliment or be helpful. Or, while you’re working be kind to your co-workers and when you have projects always be positive.

If you can’t be kind to others, be kind to yourself. Ask your job for less hours or even for a raise. Maybe with a raise you can donate money, and with fewer hours you can donate your time to a cause you like?

Kindness takes 5 seconds, even just to smile at someone. Or you can spare a few minutes in the morning to help clean the kitchen. You’ll get more out of spreading kindness and peace rather than going on your phone.

It is a fact: life can feel overwhelming sometimes. But it is also a fact that a positive attitude and connections with other people can lift our spirits and make our lives more fun and engaging!

TBT (Throwback Thursday)

May 25, 2017

While archiving some old yearbook photos I came across these beauties. Do you recognize some current WRMS staff members?

-Mrs. Hermes

Screenagers

This week, the movie Screenagers is showing during selective days and periods. I watched the movie with my class during periods 1 and 2 on Monday. Screenagers is about technology and how it is impacting teenagers. It starts off about a girl named Tessa who wants a new smartphone after her old flip phone broke. However, her mom is not happy about this idea. She is worried that it will impact her daughter in a negative way and cause her daughter to become addicted. Over the journey of discussions on this issue, the movie describes stories from other families about video game addiction, cyber bullying, and the negative impacts that it has on kids. This was an entertaining movie that help people understand important and serious effects of technology.

-Lydia Qin’18

Jazz Festival

May 16, 2017

The Westlake Jazz Festival took place this past Saturday, May 13, at Westlake High School. Our very own Walter Reed Jazz Band A competed and received 2nd place in the Middle School Intermediate division! They also received many positive comments and feedback from the festival judges. Additionally, the festival featured two guest groups: the California State University Northridge B Band and the California State University Northridge A Band. Our students got the opportunity to listen to the CSUN B Band, under the direction of Gary Pratt. Future Walter Reed jazz bands will definitely be participating in this festival in the years to come!

– So-Jung An ’17

Thank You Nurse Hamladjian!

May 12, 2017

Thank you Nurse Hamladjian! Of all the schools I’ve been to, you are the best nurse of them all! I love how sweet and caring you are towards all students.

Sincerely, Your T.A., Eli Cleary’17

Reed Festival: Success!

May 10, 2017

On Friday the 28th of April, the school held its spring festival, which held the title “Reedchella.” There was the annual silent auction along with games, food, music performances, and free photos at the photo booth. Walter Reed’s band and choir performed many pieces. Some of the attractions at the fair were Human Foosball, mini-golf, Adrenaline Rush (an obstacle course), Boot Camp, lazertag, disco hot air balloon, and Water Balloon Launcher. Many students, staff, and children from the community came to enjoy the fair. This fun event helped raise a lot of money for the school. This was a very successful fair; we are looking forward to another great one next year!

-Hannah Kim‘18, Camilla Martinez‘18, Lydia Qin‘18

Music Students in San Fran

May 10, 2017

The students from the 8th grade Wind Ensemble, String Orchestra, and Choir just recently participated in the Worldstrides Heritage Music Festival in San Francisco! During the four-day trip from April 20-23, the music students attended the competition and visited tourist sites, including the Exploratorium and Pier 39. At the awards ceremony on April 22nd, the Wind Ensemble received 1st place in the middle school concert band division and the Gold Award, the String Orchestra received the Silver Award, and the Choir received 1st place and the Gold Award. We are very proud of our music department!

– So-Jung An‘17

What’s your Personality?

What’s your personality? Depending on if you’re a imaginative, innovative, bold, smart, quite, poetic, charismatic, enthusiastic, practical, dedicated, caring, bold, energetic, or flexible there is a unique and detailed personality for you. I believe the quiz on the website below is completely accurate. Find out your personality right now by taking this quiz!

2017 Bunny Bowl

The annual Walter Reed Bunny Bowl was on Friday April 7th, the Friday before spring break. There were four exciting soccer games (one for each grade level and adapted P.E.) The green and gold teams battled it out during a fun day with a bell schedule that catered to the games. The wonderful band led by Mrs. O’rourke was there, as well as the fantastic cheerleaders. Everyone enjoyed this fun event!

7th Grade Nature Bridge Field Trip

The 7th grade Humanities Academy went to Nature Bridge also known as Camp Shalom in the Santa Monica Mountains. Looking back on our 3 day time there, I could happily say it taught me many new traits that I could actually use in the real world.

When we first arrived at the campus, all of the 80 students were separated into five different groups. Once we were in the group, each went on a little adventure or a nature hike. On the nature walk/hike our councilors informed us about the very important plants around us and how they help the surrounding environment. We ate flowers that our trail leaders told us were safe to eat. Some of the flowers even tasted like food you could find in your local grocery store. One of the flowers tasted like almonds. Everyday we would also play a team building exercise. In one of the games we had to go across an area of land without touching the ground, so we had to use everyone to join forces and create a walk way to go through.

Every night, we had the chance to take a mini walk along a tiny trail up in the mountain to take a look at the beautiful stars in the dark. Watching/observing this helped me realized how pretty nature and our world really is. Each and every little star has a special and unique feature about themselves that shines so bright. Another activity they had us do was an “oort project.” For this project, at the end of each meal they showed us the leftover food that we didn’t eat, they then weighed all of it each day to show us how well we did. The final day our average was only at 3 pounds because we noticed that we should all put less amount of food on our plate, or at least take a little portion at a time. The councilors displayed where all of the waste goes and why we should all try to get a smaller portion of food.

This really helped me reflect upon what I could do to help the environment and others in my surroundings. I am glad they exposed to us what it is like to communicate with others without technology and social media. I definitely recommend this place for the incoming 7th graders or anyone looking for a fabulous time.

– Lili Conway’18 and Ella York’18

What Flavor are YOU?

Depending on if you’re a sweet or even salty person, you should have an ice cream flavor that describes you. One question that my friends and I randomly asked was, “What ice cream flavor am I?” The answer is simply any flavor that describes you. You could be Coffee flavor when you are full of energy, you could be Nepolitan when you have multiple personalities, and much more. You should first try to find your flavor on your own then test if it’s right.

Spelling Bee Tips

Matthew Chak’18 was Reed’s Local School Winner this year. Matthew advanced to the Los Angeles County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee which was held here at Reed March 12th. Matthew was a stalwart competitor: only 30 spellers out of the 120 total separated Matthew from a trip back to Washington D.C. to compete in the national bee this May. Here is Matthew’s sage advice for Reed’s 2018 competitor (which, by the way, may also be Matthew himself, he has one more shot!):

First of all, no matter how confident you are in yourself, you never know every word on the list. Try to study as many words as you can but focus on the spelling rules for the language at hand. Overall, Scripps spelling bee is a pretty fun experience and a lot less stressful than you might think. Before the actual bee starts there are many pre-bee activities that you can do if you would like. You must also register until they finally call the competitors to the stage, perform microphone check and start the round. The first round may be stressful but as the game continues it gets exponentially easier. In order to even stand a chance at the spelling bee you have to study a lot. I studied from thirty minutes every day to up to potentially two hours. The biggest mistake I made while studying was that I tried to memorize all of the words instead of memorizing exactly how the language works. If you are the next competitor for spelling bee, focus a lot on how the language works. It would really help out. The word that I got out on was “philately”. The reason I got out on this word was just because I didn’t really study up on Greek language phonetics. If I had studied, I would have known that it would be more likely for the work to start with ph than f, and I would have lived. Who knows? I might have even won. Basically my tips to you are study hard, be calm, and have fun. – Matthew Chak’18

Reed Teacher Sponsored Clubs and Organizations

New Reed Fitness Center!

Our very fortunate school had an assembly for the ribbon cutting ceremony in the auditorium for out brand new Fitness Center in room 153! One of our wonderfully amazing teachers, Mrs. Washington, has put in so much effort in to getting this fitness center. It will soon be welcoming the community, along with all of the students at Walter Reed. The ribbon cutting ceremony was kicked off with the cheerleaders chanting the UCLA fight song, because UCLA Health Sound Body, Sound Mind is how this was all possible. The cadets, choir, and band were all present to celebrate this momentous occasion. Our student body President, So Jung An was thrilled to present the plaque along with Cindy and Bill Simon. The auditorium was filled with 8th graders chomping at the bit to get their work out on. Mrs. Washington stated that this new fitness center is not about her, it’s about the students, and she was overjoyed to be able to make this fitness center happen. This is a great way for us to learn more about fitness with all that is possible in the new and improved room 153. A huge shout out and thank you to ALL who attended to celebrate. Might as well, BREAK A SWEAT. CHANGE YOUR LIFE. And COMMIT TO BE FIT!

– Allyssa De Luna ‘18

Battle of the Books 2017

I love Battle of the Books. I have been with the same people every year and we always have fun. It’s a great experience to really think about a book that you read. My friends and I are always laughing and having a great time during the rounds, I would love to do it again in high school! -Ariella KG’17

Battle of the Books this year was so fun! My group may not have done fantastic, but we certainly had a good time! I’m so disappointed that this is my last year of B.O.B., but I hope this continues for every grade to come! -Angelo Frisina’17

8th Grade Hall of Fame Results

March 14, 2017

This is the first year in some time that we are having a yearbook hall of fame for our 8th grade students. Congratulations to all of our wonderful 2017 nominees. The results are in and the winners are as follows:

The yearbook staff will be contacting all of the winners to let them know when their yearbook photo will be taken. Again, congratulations to all 2017 nominees and to the winners as well!

-Yearbook Staff 2017

Musical: Once Upon a Story

March 1, 2017

School previews for the musical are TODAY so be prepared for singing, dancing, laughter and so much more! Tickets are on presale, so ask Ms. Smith in room 154 or any other music teacher. You can also buy tickets at the door! After months of practicing, it is finally time for you to come and watch Once Upon a Story. Enjoy!

Desktop and iPad Background Design Challenge

February 28, 2017

Mrs. Hermes and Mr. P’s MAT 8th grade students participated in a background design challenge. 73 students voted for their favorite designs for the desktops on campus, and for the iPads on campus. Design rules were to use the WRMS school logo, include the colors green and white, and a few other parameters. Congratulations to Ivan Fregozo’17 and Erika Hendricks’17 for the desktop and iPad designs, respectively.

Mrs. Hermes

National Counselor Appreciation Week 2/6-2/10

February 28, 2017

A few weeks ago, we celebrated National School Counselors Week for all of Reed’s AMAZING counselors. Hopefully everyone took some time out of their day to appreciate everything our wonderful and supportive counselors have done for us. They make sure their number one priority is their students, and help maintain students’ academic and emotional health. Even a small note can make their day. Let’s celebrate all of their hard work!

Caden Kang ’19

Pre-order YOUR Yearbook today!

February 14, 2017

3… 2… 1… pre-order YOUR yearbook today. The yearbook staff is hard at work finishing up the yearbook for everyone. If you see someone with a green badge and camera, smile! The yearbook is a great way to look back on memories later in life. Pre-Sale is only $35 and YOU can pre-order at the student store. Prices will go up March 1st. PRE-SALE EXTENDED UNTIL APRIL 1ST, ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

Rayna Zborovsky ‘17

WR: Walter Reed Weekly Riddle

Hi ya’ll. My name is Sarah Lamm. My friend, Allyssa De Luna, and I will be will be posting Walter Reed Weekly Riddles! The trick is you have ONE WEEK to try and solve the riddle. Then we will post the answer the following week with the new riddle to solve. Be Ready!

Sarah Lamm’18 and Allyssa De Luna’18

January 26, 2017 WR: What kind of tree can you carry in your hand? Answer: Palm Tree

February 2, 2017 WR: How do you wake up Lady Gaga? Answer: Poker Face Jan Morales’19

February 9, 2017 WR: What did the train say to his Valentine? Answer: I choo-choose you

February 16, 2017 WR: In a one-story pink house, there was a pink person, a pink cat, a pink fish, a pink computer, a pink chair, a pink table, a pink telephone, a pink shower– everything was pink! Answer: The stairs have no color, there aren’t any. Why have stairs in a one story building?

February 23, 2017 WR: Take off my skin. I won’t cry, but you will. What am I? Answer: An onion

March 2, 2017 WR: Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain?

Favorite T.V. Shows

January 12, 2017

Besides going on Youtube teens and pre-teens also like T.V. and Netflix. What are the shows that teens like to watch when they are bored? I surveyed the 8th grade tech honors kids to find out. List is in random order. Do you like any of these shows too?

Aida Agesyan’17

The Flash

American Genius

Malcolm in the Middle

Rick and Morty

Spongebob

Regular Show

Scorpion

Code Black

NCIS

Naruto

Walking Dead

Bob’s Burgers

X Files

Friday Night Tykes

Sons of Anarchy

Top Gear

Hunter x Hunter

The Goldbergs

American Ninja Warriors

Simpsons

Criminal Minds

Pretty Little Liars

Rain this Week: Be Prepared

January 11, 2017

This week, it has been and will continue to rain. It is predicted to rain on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with light showers on Friday. In addition to the rain, it will be cloudy and cold. Be sure to bring a jacket to stay warm. To stay dry, students can stay under the pavilion, inside the auditorium or cafeteria during lunch and nutrition times.

Lydia Qin’18

7th graders Joanna and Sarah are enjoying the downpour. Photographer: Allyssa De Luna’18

2016-17 Student Body Election

Congratulations to our 2016-2017 student council!!! We are happy to have announced our new elected members:

Water Bottle Flip Challenge

As you might know and/or do there is a current craze called, the bottle flip challenge. You can do it in two ways, a normal land, or a cap. While flipping the bottle you must make it do a full 360-degree flip. Besides the fact that you can flip, you can also do trick-shots, which is littering our school with water bottles. It is a fun challenge, but can be very obnoxious to some. The staff at Walter Reed does not like it and has to pick up after us, sadly, causing un-needed stress on campus personnel. Feel free to do it at your house or anywhere off campus, which might add stress to your parents. I tried and it ticked my parents off so much! There is even a video game called, “Bottle Flip 2k16”, in which is pretty bad, (it will waste your life.) 🙂 Always keep things school appropriate, and happy flipping! Thanks for reading!

Westley Hilton’19

Harry Potter Club: Letter from Minerva a.k.a. Addison

November 8, 2016

Dearest Witch, Wizard, Muggle, or no Maj,

We welcome you to the newest installment of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But we had to place the new academy at the muggle school of Walter Reed Middle School. Of course wizards and witches are allowed into the building. In this academy we will be reviewing the greatest wizards Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We have found a snitch that can guess any witch, wizard, beast, or magical artifact. We will discuss various topics, and finally we will have full access to your imagination with the new muggle hobby, coloring. We have drawings of famous things and you have the ability to color the formats. We hope you enjoy the new addition to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry.

Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall

-Addison Rielly ’17

College Awareness Month: October 2016

October 31, 2016

This past month was College Awareness Month, and we had lots of fun activities! First, we had Reed’s annual College Door Decorating Contest. It was a great success! It was really nice to see all of the classrooms showing their school spirit as well as their support for various colleges. Students were also able to show their spirit every Friday this month by wearing their college shirts and sweatshirts! College is going to be a fantastic experience for all of us, so I hope everyone is excited for it.

Our wonderful music teacher, Mrs. O’Rourke, gave some great information on what college is really like, and told us specifically what made her alma mater, UCLA, special! She described college as “a super fun version of high school” and mentioned that college is really a great transition from adolescence to the work force and adulthood. She also stated that college allows students to be more independent and to focus on what they truly love! She also stressed the importance of having good professors in your field at whatever university you attend.

At UCLA, Mrs. O’Rourke was able to really focus on her love of music. She actually decided to become a music teacher while attending the university, and first came to Walter Reed as a student teacher when UCLA recommended that she visit and work at a middle school! Mrs. O’Rourke attended the school of 30,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students from 1999-2003 and felt that in her years there, UCLA provided a really nice, safe environment. UCLA also has many incredible programs, including an amazing marching band as well as great sports, which Mrs. O’Rourke loved!

As most people know, college is a wonderful time filled with opportunities, and I encourage everyone to be aware of those opportunities not only in the month of October when we celebrate College Awareness Month, but every other month as well!

-So Jung An ’17

HalloReed’s Howling Haunted Hangout

October 27, 2016

This year was Walter Reed’s first annual Halloreed Hangout! This great event was a fundraiser for the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) Academy. In my opinion and the opinion of many others the fair was awesome! Many of the students and teachers attended and had a great time. There were three different food trucks and a cake walk, so very delicious. There were so many fun activities including inflatables which were placed on the P.E. field. There was also dragon’s breath, a really cool smoke filled experience. The time goes by fast when you’re having fun and that is exactly what happened at the Halloreed Haunted House. MAT students jumped out and surprised you at every turn in the haunted house. Overall the Halloreed Hangout was awesome and a big thank you goes out to the students, teachers, and parents who volunteered.

Comic: ASDF Remake

October 20, 2016

-Salvatore Tucci ‘18

Fashion Club

October 7, 2016

Fashion Club is one of the free extracurricular activities at Walter Reed Middle School. It is all about helping students in our school community study fashion. Students will discover their true fashion abilities. I believe that fashion is everything and I will teach students with the same thinking. Everyone leaves his or her mark on this world and I believe that if you find a passion for something early it will be easier to leave a bigger mark on the world.

-Aida Agesyan ‘17

Who will be teaching: 8th grader, Aida Agesyan

What you will be learning: imagining, drawing, arts and crafts, and creating outfits

Where: In the library

When: EVERY OTHER Wednesday After school from 3:05p to 4:05p

Next Meeting: 10/26/16 (since there is no school on 10/12/16)

We hope to see you there!

R.A.S.E. Review: After School Gourmet Cooking

October 4, 2016

Last Tuesday we visited the Cooking Class with Chef Chris Allen. For those students who have a passion for cooking we recommend this class in room 116.

From delicous pizza to amazing brownies, in this class you learn so many different types of dishes you can make at home. It was only the third class and these chefs were making everyone in the room mouthwatering hungry! You don’t just get to make and learn new techniques and dishes; science is also involved. Chef Chris incorporates chemistry, teaching students to understand why the food we love cooks the way it does. For example he mentioned how the baking soda reacts to the amino acids in the sour cream, allowing the bread to rise.

Groups give everyone a chance to play a big role in a single project. For example; while one person get the eggs, an other person gets the flour. These groups also “allow students from different grades, academies, and friendship circles to meet and hangout with unexpected friends,” says Danielle Bensimon ’17. Using this process everyone helps to create the scrumptious banana bread muffins we were lucky enough to taste. There were a few bananas left over, that everyone also got to enjoy.

By the time the class ended you could smell the freshly baked banana bread. Everyone had a blast! The class is split up into groups of five, one group per table. Groups use modern day technology to look up their own recipes, picked by Chef Chris. The class used the “Banana Bread” recipe (written and posted by Shelley Albeluhn) on allrecipes.com. “Making the banana bread was fun and all, but the real fun came after when devouring it!”, says Tara George ‘19. Everyone managed to follow directions and their banana bread muffins didn’t turn out to be “Banana Bread Hockey Pucks”, like Chef Allen refers, when there isn’t enough moisture and and the bread is as hard as rocks! Luckily using the surprisingly effective sour cream, they avoided this fate.

-Jasmine Alas-Castillo’17 & Eva Bassel’17

Care Mondays

September 29, 2016

Walter Reed Middle School’s Care Mondays are back! Come bring your recyclables to the Sarah Street Gate to help our environment and benefit our school. Collect all of your recyclables at home, you can collect plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and clear produce containers. With your help, we can earn up to $400/week for our school. This can benefit our school greatly, by funding school activities including the music department activities. REMEMBER to bring your recyclables on MONDAYS to help our school!

-Camilla Martinez ‘18

Milk + Bookies

September 27, 2016

The Walter Reed NJHS is hosting their annual Milk + Bookies event. The event will start on Wednesday September 28th and go until Monday October 17th. When you donate books, you’ll get a ticket to enjoy some milk and cookies in Shall Park. The books collected will be donated to the Langdon Elementary School’s book fair. Students get to contribute to a school that is in need of books and to have a fun event to look forward to at the same time. If you’re able to donate books, they need to be in good condition. Make sure to bring your books to your first period class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

-Hannah Kim ‘18 and Camilla Martinez ‘18

Sixth Grade Thoughts

September 2016

It’s a new fresh year and there are many incoming sixth graders that are now living the Walter Reed Middle School lifestyle. Here are some of their thoughts:

Question: How do you feel about your teachers and classes?

Student: So far, I enjoy my classes. They are very cool and interesting.

Question: What do you think about the school environment?

Student: “I think the school environment is nice. I like how there are a lot of computers on campus, and we use them a lot.”

Question: What are some events you are looking forward to?

Student: “I am looking forward to the talent show, musical, and also the music concerts.”

-Lydia Qin‘18 and Hannah Kim‘18

Reeds Got Talent: Auditions

September 20, 2016

Hear the music play, hear the guitars strum! Reed’s Got Talent auditions were filled with fun, music, nerves, and of course, talent. I was one of the people who was able to experience that! Auditioning can definitely be something that causes nerves, but when there is a lot of competition, well I guess you know that I would probably be pretty nervous. Seeing all the other acts from my point of view was really fun. Everybody had a lot of perseverance and determination about it. Even if you did not get in, you tried! That is the most important thing you could do. And congrats to everyone who did make it!

-Faith Spalding ’19

Chocolate Sales Fundraiser

September 20, 2016

It’s time for the chocolate sales. The chocolate sales are a yearly experience that students at Walter Reed can participate in. They must turn in $ 60 prepay or get a box and turn in the money in the morning. The students can sell these chocolates any way they want. Some suggestions are your neighbors, your parent’s work, etc. There’s no limit to how they sell them. But they must be all turned in by the deadline which is 10/21/16. Have fun chocolatiers!

– Addison Reilly’17

R.A.S.E. Review: Minecraft Programming

September 20, 2016

Welcome to R.A.S.E. Review, A place to check out what Reed has to offer after school. Here we will review and rate each of the R.A.S.E. classes so watch out for Reed Review’s new weekly segment. Our first class to review, being the Minecraft Programming with Ms. Leslie from ComputerWiseKids.

Hey Minecraft Junkies, your time has come and it takes place at 3:20 on mod-ays (mondays), room 218.

This class is perfect for those of us who want an hour of Minecraft learning, and the lesson plan is certainly a fun one. “This week we threw them in like the Hunger Games, without the weapons of course.” says Luis Sanchez, an instructor for definitely one of the coolest classes R.A.S.E. has to offer. He was literal when he said without the weapons, considering it is impossible to kill your classmates. But just because you’re allowed to flaunt your independence doesn’t mean this class allows you to goof around (too much). And while the consequence borders on harsh it’s too impressive to leave unsaid. How does not being able to move a muscle (online) sound? Well if you join this class, remember to keep your noise level down, because if it moves too high you won’t be able to move at all; you’ll be “Frozen”. Don’t worry it won’t last for more than a few minutes at a time, but a few minutes watching your friends game without you can scar you for life.

“This class is super fun and cool. I really enjoyed the ‘Village War’ that happened between some boys and my friends! We found a village at the same time as them, they raided it!” says Gabrielle Toranzo ‘19. Since everyone on the server couldn’t kill each other they resorted to other means of attack. ‘Other means’ referring to the damage they did to each other’s houses, and the stealing of supplies. If only chests had locks.

This week focused on team building, literally, by making houses. Students were allowed to choose their own groups. Fun skins, amazing houses, and a ton of building went on this Monday.

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Culmination Ceremony Class of 2016

June 9, 2016

Each class defines itself by their members and their camaraderie. Class of 2016, you have shown the rest of us what can be accomplished by your acceptance, love, and support for each other. You have also helped to keep us young in our hearts and mind, whether settling a dispute, celebrating an achievement, or surviving Drop of Doom at Grad night! There is a place on campus where your memories at Reed are memorialized by the “Farewell” messages you wrote in our main entrance display case. I’d like to take a moment to read a few that represent your unique spirit as individuals and as a class. Among the many statements of gratitude to our teachers and staff for their kindness and encouragement, you wrote the following:

“I met new friends that are now my best friends.”

“My best memories are going to the Library to get new books.”

“Being a TA for Mr. Demski, Mr. Paisano talking in Spanish and Mr. Wolfgram’s ties and Canadian accent.”

“My favorite memory is when my friend fell down from a chair and got hot sauce all over his pants.”

“My three years have been amazing, and there were bad times too but that is what has made me stronger.”

“One of my favorite memories at Reed was when my friends and I all went to the Medieval Fair. It was a lot of fun going on the Anti-Bully obstacle course.”

“Going on our field trips, especially to San Francisco, Boston and Yosemite.”

“My favorite memory has to be the time when we had our own garden and watched it grow. Here at Reed we have an environmental class that is so much fun and after we grow the vegetables we make a Salsa Party!”

“Playing in the Bunny Bowl was one of the most amazing events ever. Teamwork played a major role and I liked how our team had gender equality.”

I end with this quote because it speaks to your future and what you have to look forward to as you take your rich experiences from Walter Reed with you onto your new successes. Yesterday in our rehearsal, as I was shaking the hand of each student, it occurred to me that I was shaking the hands of our future. Students, never underestimate your potential. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, The Future Belongs to Those Who Believe in the Beauty of their Dreams. I wish all of you the courage to embrace your new challenges and the fulfillment of your dreams. It has been an honor and privilege serving as your principal at Reed MS.

Jeanne Gamba, Principal

The Mantra Within

Graduation Speech by Faith Mayhew’16

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” – Winston Churchill

From the first day we entered the gates of Walter Reed Middle School, we were given a mantra. This mantra has been repeated every day of our middle school lives. “Be safe. Be responsible. Be respectful.” It is just one of the many things from this school that make such an impression on us in the most innocent way. Whether we’d like to admit or not, this saying has become more than just some words we hear every day over the speaker. It has become a part of us.

This phrase has guided us throughout the years. It has nourished us, allowing us to grow from vulnerable sixth graders to insusceptible eighth graders. Now as we move into high school, we must find something new. A phrase that will help mentor our minds and let our imaginations grow high into the sky. A saying that will bring us amenity in times of darkness. We must find our own mantra.

My personal mantra has been present with me every day I’ve been here. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” (Winston Churchill). Through good times and bad, I am constantly reminded and humbled by this quote. It reminds us that such a simple thing as smiling can make a ray of sunshine from a storm. It reminds us that treating each other with love and respect can not only brighten someone else’s day, but ours as well. In a way, this mantra and Walter Reed’s aren’t so different.

I remember my first day of sixth grade. I was petrified (to say the least). I didn’t go to an elementary school nearby, so I didn’t know anyone here. Everywhere I looked I saw old friends reunited, while the closest thing I had to a friend was my shadow. I felt helpless, afraid, alone, and had a pain my chest not unlike the way one feels after running the mile. Then I saw the face of a girl who is now one of my best friends. It took all the courage I had not to just sit back and sulk, but somehow I managed to put on a smile and make a new friend. It is safe to say that if I hadn’t changed my attitude I would not have her by my side today.

While this mantra serves as my inspiration to look at each day with a new sense of optimism, it also is a warning. As easy it is to change your day for the better, it is just as easy to change it for the worse. For many anxious people, such as myself, one small thing can turn a beautiful day sour. Akin to Reed’s mantra, if we aren’t safe, responsible, and respectful, it is easy to let bad things get in your way. A bad test grade can lead your brain to believe that your education is over. A misinterpreted comment from your friend can lead you to think that you are worthless. Truth is, we aren’t any of these things. We are human, perfectly imperfect.

This mantra isn’t a judge of how well we block out the bad things in our lives, no matter how big or small they seem. It is a judge of how we overcome the bad things in our lives and see the beauty in them. The morning before a huge show choir competition, I had an unexpected panic attack. I felt so bad afterwards about letting it happen that I wasn’t sure if I could go without feeling worse. Yet, I powered through and went to the competition. It wasn’t easy to overcome the weight lingering on my shoulders from the panic attack, but my mantra gave me the strength I needed to bounce back. Sometimes the world feels like it’s in black and white, only you can change it back to color.

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” Attitude is what can make bad days good and good days bad. Attitude can change your life. Attitude can also change someone else’s. This may not be the perfect mantra that inspires you to live your best life, but I hope it inspires you to find your mantra. A mantra that will fill you up with light when you repeat it. A mantra that will help you make a difference. Before you venture out into the world and find that mantra, there is one more you should hear, for one last time: Be safe, be responsible, be respectful. Have a nice day.

Swing Night 2016: Swing Fever

Swing Night is a major annual fundraiser for the Walter Reed Music Department and is held on Saturday June 4th, at 6:00 p.m. in the Rose Garden. This day is the end of the year party where WRMS student musicians come together to raise money and have a good time. The music department encourages you to come and celebrate this moment with music, food, company, and entertainment. This includes raffles and auctions, which gives you a chance to win great prizes that students and parents have donated for this event such as Disneyland tickets, gift cards, skateboards, video games, and more.

We encourage you to donate items to this fundraiser and come to this amazing celebration. To donate items or buy a ticket, you must fill out a form that you can get from the music teachers in room 147. Bring all of your friends and family to this wonderful annual festival.

On May 25, 2016 we went to Ms. O’Rourke, a music teacher of string and wind classes to interview her about Swing Night. Question and Answer with Ms. O’Rourke:

Q: What will Swing Night be like?

A: Swing Night is an end of the year dinner party for the music department. All of the Walter Reed Middle School families are invites to this party. There’s going to be live performances from the choral ensembles, jazz band, specialty groups, and percussion acts.

Q: Is there anything particularly special about swing night?

A: During swing night, all grades come together. Many alumni also come back to enjoy swing night.

Q: Where and when will it be held?

A: Swing Night is going to be held in the Rose Garden at 6 p.m. through 9 p.m.. There’s going to be a stage where the musicians will perform and it’s going to be set up like a banquet with rows of tables decorated for the people attending. Because it is a family event, there’s going to be a silent auction and a raffle that everyone can participate in.

– Hannah Kim’17

May 18, 2016

Ancient Civilizations Marketplace

The Ancient Civilization Marketplace will be held on May 27th. This project is based upon the seventh grade project “Faire of the Ages”. Each sixth grade history class has chosen one aspect of ancient civilizations: geography, religion, cultural achievements, politics, economics, or social structure. The different ancient civilizations that will show these aspects are: Mesopotamia, Israel, Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome.

Ms. Miller’s history classes were assigned the political aspect of the six ancient civilizations. Each civilization will have four to five people in each group. All groups chose a different civilization on which to focus and create a topic. Every group will have to create products for their market.

We have invited Colfax and Carpenter elementary school fifth grade students so that they can have a sneak peek at what they will be learning in the following year. Through this marketplace, students will be able to review what they have learned about the different civilizations throughout the year and display their knowledge in an intriguing way. -Camilla Martinez ‘18, Hannah Kim ‘18, and Lydia Qin ‘18

May 18, 2016

Catalina Island Marine Institute

On May 6-8, 2016, a majority of sixth grade IHP students went to CIMI (Catalina Island Marine Institute). During the trip, the students did exciting activities which consist of snorkeling, hiking, squid dissection, rock climbing, and different labs. Although all the activities were exciting and educational, one of my favorite parts about the trip was the morning hike. On the last day, the people that wanted to go on the hike got up around 5 in the morning to meet by the meeting area by 5:15. Around 5, it was still dark because it was before the sun rose. We got onto the trail and hiked up to the top where we saw the ocean, the clouds, and where the sun would rise. We had to wait for a while before the sun actually rose. The sun started to peek out around 5:32 a.m.. It was a beautiful sight to see the sun slowly rising, especially at the end. When the sun was about fully risen, the sun reflected rays of sunlight down to the ocean where it created something that looked like a pathway made out of sunlight. Once the sun had fully rose, everyone hiked back down back to their cabins, where we would start packing. – Hannah Kim’18

April 7, 2016

Beet Harvest!

The Environmental Science Academy grew organic beets in our garden. First we planted seeds one foot apart. Then we watered them and took care of them every day. After about three months, they were ready to be harvested. We will soon make them part of a healthy salad dish. We still have many more foods growing in our garden that we will soon harvest (lettuce, turnips, cilantro, potatoes, squash, peas and so much more!) – Michelle Morshchagin’18 and Montserrat Mier’18

March 13, 2016

Los Angeles County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee

Hosted by Walter Reed Middle School, Friends Of Reed and Reed PTSA

After months of preparation and competition at their local schools, more than 25,000 students from over 120 public, private, magnet, and religious schools in Los Angeles had the opportunity to advance to the Los Angeles County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee as the last step before the national competition. Hosted by Friends Of Reed and the PTSA at Walter Reed Middle School on Sunday, March 13, 2016, the local school winners assembled for a competition to name the top champion in Los Angeles County, and earn the opportunity to advance to the National Scripps Spelling Bee competition hosted in Washington DC, May 2016.

The 2016 contest lasted six hours and 15 rounds with 344 words. Cooper Komatsu won the competition for the second year in a row, placing 11th in the National Bee last year. We wish this 8th grader all the best in his advancement to the national competition once more! Our Champion won with the correct spelling of the word gudgeon. Originally Greek, this word passed from Latin to French before becoming English. It is a noun which means: any of numerous spiny-finned fishes, usually having a broad depressed head and large mouth, and occurring chiefly in shallow coastal waters. Other notable finalist and elimination words included: affidavit, feloniously, singspiration, gnathonic, froufrou, gourami and mercerize. We encourage you to look them up!

Thank you to the following sponsors:

Jay Sugarman, Chairman and CEO of iStar Financial and longtime supporter of the Bee. Donated 2016 United States Mint Proof Set in honor of his father.

National Competition info can be found at www.spellingbee.com. You can also find a list of Past National Champions at http://spellingbee.com/champions-and-their-winning-words .

Congratulations to our outstanding participants. We are so proud of you all and we look forward to seeing you next year!

Historical Info:

The 2015 contest lasted 21 rounds with 372 words. Our Champion won with the correct spelling of the word carillon. This word came from French, which formed it from a Latin word. It is a noun which means: a set of fixed bells pitched in chromatic series of at least two octaves and sounded by hammers controlled by a keyboard. Notable elimination words included: agglomerate, voortrekker, gymkhana, and occlusal.

The 2014 contest lasted 23 rounds with a total of 361 words. The winning word was ventricose. This word is from Latin, an adjective which means: distended: inflated; especially: markedly swollen on one side. Notable elimination words included: decastich, chresard, and geanticline. We encourage you to look them up!

2014 Competition finalists after 23 Rounds:

1st Timothy Lau (8th Grade) Calle Mayor Middle School CHAMPION

2nd Cooper Komatsu (6th Grade) Culver City Middle School Finalist

3rd Alexis Cho (7th Grade) Pinecrest School Canyon Country Finalist

My Spelling Bee Experience

This year I was the Reed local school winner for the 2016 Los Angeles County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee. Studying for this bee has impacted my everyday life. I learned a lot of lessons about using my resources in order to spell the words that were given. I acquired knowledge on the origins of words, I learned spelling patterns that occur in different languages.Hannah and I will be attending the spelling bee club again next year because it was fun and also educational.

– Camilla Martinez’18 and Hannah Kim

December 18, 2015

Holiday Relay Races

The Holiday Relay Races were put on by Student Council to help spread holiday cheer. The contestants were commanded to complete the obstacle course which included multiple holiday activities. The speakers were amazing, they told jokes, cheered, and laughed. Let’s thank Student Council for setting up everything. They worked hard to make everything fun and festive. Hope you all have a great winter break! – Alexis Casas’16 and Arial Olshansky’16

Seven eighth graders volunteered from each second period class to participate and seven seventh graders volunteered from their third period class. The Student Council worked hard to prepare seven stations for the relay which were the Dreidel Game, Toilet Paper Snowman, Cookie Table, Ball Through the Wreath, Ornament on the Spoon, Kinara Cone, and last but not least, Gift Wrapping. The students were each assigned to a station and they continued their activities as the candy cane was passed. “It was really fun and intense watching people verse each other. Overall, it was really fun for me.” –Eunice Kim ‘16

Congratulations to the classrooms that won the relay. Thank you to the classrooms that participated in the relay and thank you to the student council! Have a great winter break!

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December 9, 2015

Random Acts of Kindness

“There are about 1,600 kids at this school. If every one of them did at least one random act of kindness a day, it would completely change the climate of our school,” says Mrs. Szymanski. Mrs. Szymanski is a 7th and 8th grade Math teacher for the Humanities Academy. A discussion about kindness with Mr. Torres led to a clever idea.

Mrs. Szymanski hung poster boards on the walls of her classroom, one board for every class period she has. Students would strive to make at least one random act of kindness a day, and once they did, they’d write the act on their designated poster board. Mrs. Szymanski believes that these random acts of kindness will help the school in the best way possible. Whether it’s picking up trash, or helping your parents with dishes, it will make you feel like a better person for doing a random act of kindness. – Aprilia Vitale’16

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November 2015

Movember Part 2

Movember was a complete success! We raised over $1000 dollars for prostate cancer! Earlier this month I wrote an article introducing the Movember topic. I mentioned about a bunch of staff members that showed their support by growing out their beards and mustaches. On the last day of November students and staff member gathered in the pavilion to shave their mustaches. The wonderful staff members: Mr. Slavinsky, Mr. Segura. Mr. P, Mr. Gavia, and Mr. Martinez publicly shaved their mustaches and beards. Lets give a special thank you to Student Council who made all of this happen with making posters, making/selling balloons, etc. Also last but not least, the class that raised the most money towards this event is Mrs. Hermes’ homeroom class raised over $200 and received a pizza party as a thank you for their support. Thank you again to all the people that donated!

Mr. Gavia

Mr. Martinez

Mr. Segura

Mr. Slavinsky

November 5, 2015

MO-vember!

November is the month to support prostate cancer awareness month. Not shaving encourages people to grow out their mustaches and beards to support men that suffer from this type of cancer, and to raise money for research. Maybe women can participate by not shaving their legs? Not shaving for November was recognized back in 2009 on Facebook. Many staff members at Reed will be growing out their mustaches and beards this month to raise money for prostate cancer research. Here are few before pics…

Shout out to Reed staff who have vowed to participate:Mr. Omar, Mr. P, Mr. Segura, Mr. Slavinsky, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Gavia, and Mr. Torres will shave his head if we raise over $5000. Help us reach our goal!

-Arial Olshansky ’16

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November 2015

NJHS Canstruction Project

Every year Walter Reed’s National Junior Honors Society (NJHS) hosts a Canstruction Project. For the month of November, first period classes collected cans of food and built awesome structures with them. Ms. Szymanski’s class was our winner this year, with their amazing construction of the Eiffel Tower. In addition, this year our goal was 700 cans, and we beat our goal by collecting 717 cans! NJHS would like to congratulate and thank Reed students for being so generous, as all the cans will be donated to the Valley Food Bank. – Patrick Kim’16

The Turkey Bowl was a blast! But it couldn’t have happened without many Reed staff members. Thank you P E Department Teachers for organizing the game, as well as providing cheerleaders. Thank you Music Dept.and Ms. O’Rourke for playing music for all three games. Thank you Mr. Wolfgram for the excellent commentary on the game, it made the whole experience more enjoyable and memorable. Thank you teachers for bringing your classes to cheer for our amazing Reed football talent. Thank you to all the Gold Teams and Green Teams. Thank you everyone! – Patrick Kim’16

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November 17, 2015

In ‘N Out Limousine Lunch Treat

On Tuesday our top chocolate sales students celebrated with a rare lunchtime treat. Congrats to you all!

This was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to party around in an awesome ride, during school hours. It is so amazing: when you walk up those first few steps, you know that you are going to have a great time. You start to think, “Wow. Is this really happening?” It is a day to remember. Everybody is having a blast; dancing in their seats while the disco ball twirls. People are singing, talking, and having a good time. Most importantly, people are interacting with each other in a good and fun way. – Maia Rodino’18

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November 16, 2015

Cadet Awards Ceremony

At the November 16th Awards Ceremony, cadets were awarded with various types of Ribbons for their hard work and leadership. Cadets were also promoted to different ranks. Most cadets were awarded with the School Service Ribbon that is earned by working in the hallways and opening the doors for our Reed teachers, staff, and our principal. Cadets that worked for the Rummage and E-waste sale earned service hours and were awarded with a ribbon that cadets are absolutely proud to keep: the Principals Citation Ribbon. There is a ribbon that it is only possible for 4 cadets at a time to earn: the Physical Fitness Ribbon in the categories of Push-ups, Sit-ups, Planks and Jumping Jacks. Cadet Erik Khechoyan’16 took first place in two physical activities, Push-ups and Sit-ups. Cadet Jesus Sandoval’16 took first in Jumping Jacks, and Vann James’17 in Planks.

Cadets that took the promotion test were promoted to a higher rank than their last original rank. About ten cadets were promoted at the Awards Ceremony. My name is Jesus Sandoval, an 8th grade student here at Reed and part of Cadets. Some of the ribbons I earned are the Physical Fitness Ribbon, Commandant of Cadets, State Service, and Battalion Cadre. I hope that the cadets at Reed continue to work as hard as I do. Cadets reach for goals that get them into better positions for accomplishing their dreams. Cadets set an example that others can follow. – Jesus Sandoval’16

Editors Note: The Superior Scholarship Ribbon will be presented at the end of the school semester to all Cadets achieving a “B” average or higher in all accredited classes.

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Milk&Bookies

My experience in NJHS (National Junior Honors Society) has been extremely rewarding. I was involved in helping collect, sort, and distribute the books for the Milk&Bookies project, and I never felt like this was “work”. I knew where everything was going and how happy it would make the children receiving these books! When I got to Langdon, I helped a preschooler pick out a book. I handed him a Spider-Man book and his face lit up- “Wait, is it really mine, to keep forever?! This is the BEST DAY EVER!” It made me so happy to make their day, and how much one book can make someone so happy! – Valentina Mallari Santiago’17

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November 2015

Special Olympics School Games

On Wednesday, November 4, students from Walter Reed Middle School participated in the LAUSD School Games, a partnership with Special Olympics Southern California. The tournament is the culmination of a soccer-training program offered through the District’s Adaptive Physical Education program. In addition to promoting physical fitness and healthy living, the Special Olympics program helps students to learn and develop life-long skills which enable the students to live long, productive, independent lives. The Reed Middle School Wolf Pack did extremely well, taking home 3rd place in the competition! Congratulations to all of the athletes! And thank you to Ms. Fox for coordinating and coaching our students in soccer. – Ms. Adkins, Room 156

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November 5, 2015

Career Day 2015

Career Day is a great opportunity for students to see and discover new paths for their future. There have been many parents with interesting careers who have come to us.

I was fascinated by a parent who did art therapy. It is a way of expressing your feelings and emotions through art, and it is easier than other types of therapy. – Noorim Oh’16

I thought it was very cool how the police officers do their jobs. They taught us all about their k-9 units. I thought it was very cool how all of the different k-9 dogs were trained at different jobs and knew exactly what to do. The police officers also taught us what they do in emergencies. Overall, I thought it was a cool experience. The lawyer explained a lot of things and told us all about the different schools and colleges we need to go to in order to become a lawyer. She explained a lot of things to us and she explained how many different kinds of jobs the lawyers can have. She taught us a lot about how she works and does things everyday. Overall, I thought it was very helpful and descriptive to learn about all of these things. – Alexia Geokchyan’16

One of my favorites was the K-9; it taught us how dogs also have important jobs to do. I think Career Day is a great idea! – Karla Mendez”16

Career Day was awesome. I listened to an actress and it was really fun. I liked that we did improve after the presentation. – Daniel Han’16

The cartoonist did a great job explaining how each individual episode of a show is produced. The presenter for martial arts explained how martial arts is used strictly for defense and requires a lot of discipline. The cheerleaders for UCLA explained that college is not only a great place for education but you can have lots of fun as well! – Alexis Casas’16

There was one person who stood out to me, he was a mixed martial arts fighter. He told us about his daily training routine and about how hard he works to maintain his body weight to be at a specific weight range. One thing that he emphasized the most was that even though he fights people for a living, education is still very important. – Justin Kim’16

A professional addiction councilor visited my classroom. She talked about the place she worked at – Phoenix House – and all of the adolescents she worked with. The councilor shared with us the issues that the kids had, and what kind of solutions she puts into use. Many students were interested in the situation that the adolescents were in. She also outlined the educational path she journeyed through to become an addiction counselor. This allowed me to see the multitude of jobs possible, that I may want to look at in the future. – Patrick Kim’16

Career Day gave me a clearer thought of my future and I learned a lot, about judges, lawyers, and specialists. – Kenneth Chung’17

Very Inspirational. – Daria Sysoeva’16

I liked it a lot because of how thorough and prepared the presenters seemed. I learned a lot about different jobs I didn’t even know existed. – Kate Totter’16

I think Career Day was very influential, it gave people a chance to think about what to do in the future. – Emily Acosta’16

I found it really informative. I liked how much the speakers incorporated the kids in their presentations. It was really exciting. – Jacob Ramer’16

It was a great opportunity to let kids get an idea, or at least start thinking, about what kind of job they want to do in the future. It also helped some kids get interested in jobs that at first they didn’t think were interesting. – Aida Urrutia’16

It inspires me to get a job. – Angela Wilcox’16

Career Day was a blast! There were numerous professionals in a number of fields that inspired me to work hard so that I can achieve my aspirations. – Jesse Park’16

It showed me jobs I have never really considered before. It also showed me how I can plan out my future. Go Walter Reed Wolves! – Simona Konstantinovskaya’16

The week of October 26-30 was Spirit Week for ALL Reed students and staff. It was a time of fun and support for WRMS and an exciting way for us to cooperate and become united as one.

Monday 10/26

Pajama Day

Tuesday 10/27

Superhero/Villain Day

Wednesday 10/28

Sports Day

Thursday 10/29

Rainbow Day (grade level specific colors)

Friday 10/30

Monsters University Day

Thank you to all the students and staff at Reed that made this week a huge success!

-Noorim Oh ’16 and Ellie Kim “16

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November 5, 2015

Chocolate Sales at Reed!

The chocolate sale has started, and everyone can be a part of it! In order to participate, you must return the permission slip in the morning to the C-Arcade covered walkway. You can receive your chocolate after school for 45 minutes. The best part of the sale, of course, are the prizes. You can win prizes such as, a limo ride to In-N-Out, and even $100 cash! Money was due by October 19th, but sales have been extended.

-So-Jung An ’17

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October 28, 2015

Teen Cuisine: A Delicious Experience!

Teen Cuisine gave us an opportunity to learn new recipes and to do it with friends. Because of this class, we now know so many fun recipes and we can make them for our family, too. We are so thankful that Ms. Mintz can give her time after school to help kids learn a new skill. — Emily’18 and Ariel Ilan’16

Wondering where you can delicious foods while having fun? Look no further because Friday Night Foods is just that. We get to make lots of yummy recipes like phyllo dough pizza, brownies and mac n cheese. And we are taught by a wonderful chef, Ms.Mintz. Friday Night Foods is an amazing class. — Miranda Minton’17

Beginning Teen Cuisine was a wonder and a brand new experience for me! When I was little at home in the kitchen, I would always peer over my mom’s shoulder to see what she was cooking for dinner. Since then, I wanted to follow a recipe on my own; snatch up the ingredients, and create something delicious and fabulous. Right here in Teen Cuisine, I got to do all of those things. So many recipes and great tasting foods … I right away devoured it all in this one amazing cooking class! I think everyone in Teen Cuisine really learned and experienced teamwork. Every kid went home with great stories about Teen Cuisine; carrying a heavenly treat to share with friends and family. It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to participate in this fun-filled cooking class. For everyone in Teen Cuisine, every minute and every second counted while creating their masterpieces of tasty sweets and dishes. I would like to thank Ms. Mintz, who gave us this opportunity to experience a path full of delicious cooking! Ms. Mintz knew how all of us kids felt after school … we needed some fun and a tasty treat! Teen Cuisine really was one delicious experience!

– Darveen An’18

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October 26, 2015

College Awareness: Door Decorating Contest

The winners of the college door contest are 6th grade: Ms. Sofio’s class; 7th grade: Ms.Szymanski’s class; and last, 8th grade: the SLC office. Thanks to everyone who participated. I saw many decorated doors! I saw a door that had lights, and one that had a football field. Ms.Hermes’ door was nice, with spinning wheels to pick both a college and a major. I saw many different kinds of schools during the time I was checking the doors. I was very interested because in the future I want to be a social worker. It made me think about what college I may be attending, and how I can be successful. My favorite door was the one for the SLC office, it looked like actual people cheering for their college. Each grade had one winner and the winners will get a doughnut party.

– Emily Guevara’16

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October 23, 2015

2015 Reed’s Got Talent Show

The Reed’s Got Talent Show took place on Friday October 23 in the school auditorium. Students, teachers, and a few alumni performed in the show. It was organized by Humanities Academy students under the supervision of Ms. Szymanski. Humanities Academy students were the hosts, stage crew, and stage managers. Thanks to the parents, we also had a beautiful art show. There were tap dancers, ballet dancers, singers, pianists, ukulele players, guitarists, and much more. “The last two acts were by far my favorites,” commented Ana Tarakchyan’16, “The guy who sang ‘Don’t Stop Believin” was very good. The last act was a piano and saxophone, also very good! The girl who sang ‘Hallelujah’ was spot on.

“Being part of the backstage crew was very fun but also very stressful. I personally think that we did very well with the talent show, and we all did our best. All the acts were amazing, but I want to give all my thanks to Ms. Szymanski and all the stage managers for being in charge of making all of this happen. The Reed’s Got Talent 2015 Show was a huge success!”

— Eunice Choi’16 and Noorim Oh’16

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October 17, 2015

YS Plus District Champs!

Walter Reed Middle School’s Beyond the Bell Flag Football team won the 2015 District-wide Championships!! The Wolves emerged after four weeks of tournament rounds against schools in the area, then the Region, and finally the District. They advanced to be the #1 team out of 96 teams city-wide!!! For the last six weeks, all of the players and their wonderful coaches (Head Coach David Zepeda, Assistant Coach Christion Graves, and Coach Mike Valenz) have been practicing until 5 PM, 5 days a week, often in temperatures that rose above 100 degrees. Most of those players would then go off to other team practices or music lessons or tutoring, before heading home for a late dinner and then homework. These kids, led by these fantastic coaches, were so proud to represent their school!

They played with admirable sportsmanship and beautiful camaraderie, along with insane amounts of drive! It was a wonderful bonding experience for all of us Reed parents, as well. We’ve spent the past several Saturdays sweating buckets huddled under a tent, rooting on our kids, getting to know each other.

— Leila Stolberg P’16 (mother of Asher Stolberg’16)

Note: Beyond the Bell YS Plus sports program is open to all Reed students free of charge. YS Plus pays for all uniform and tournament fees. Flag Football season has just concluded, basketball and rugby practices are just starting. Reed fields both junior varsity (6th grade) and varsity (7th & 8th grade) teams. For more information you may contact Coach David at dzepeda99@gmail.com.

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7th Grade Fall Concert

October 13, 2015

The Fall 7th Grade Concert was great. It was the current 7th graders’ first concert, and everyone did an amazing job. The students had to arrive at the school by 5:30p, and prepared for the concert at 6:30p. The whole Auditorium was filled with parents and friends of the students. I was in the Jazz Band, and was extremely nervous and excited for our first performance of the year. We were really successful! -So-Jung An’17

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September 30, 2015

Art of Peace Club Reunion

The Art of Peace Club Reunion was fun. It is cool how there are so many people from so many different LAUSD schools in the Art of Peace Club. There are now about 900 kids involved, 700 girls and 200 boys. There are many members at this school, and when Miz Jodi saw us she couldn’t believe it. Members of the club were given an invite to the Reunion, which was Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at lunch in the Parent Center. There was lots of pizza and many happy faces just smiling and having lunch in peace. Miz Jodi and Miz Silvia were there, along with a special guest Queen Mary. Miz Jodi is the founder of the Art of Peace Club and she enjoys having reunions to see how everyone is doing. This is a helpful and inspiring club for all kids to join, you learn many techniques for how to get along with the people around you. I joined when I was nine years old at Oxnard Elementary School. It helped me socialize more with people. I am sure if you join the Art of Peace Club it will help you if you like getting to know different people. And you will have fun! – Emily Guevara’16

Patrick Kim was elected as our school’s 2015-2016 Vice President. Reed Review was curious how he felt about it:

Q: What do you hope to achieve by being a Vice President in our school?

A:“I hope to plan many fun-filled activities that involves the whole student body, but not only specific groups of students but as a whole.”

Q: Why did you want the seat of VP in the student council?

A: “I want to make a difference at Walter Reed for the better, possibly creating traditions for the future. Having this position would place me one step closer to these opportunities.”

Q: How do you feel about being elected as a VP?

A: “I feel honored that the student body trusts me in representing them. Although I feel the pressure of having such a high position, I am excited to serve at Walter Reed Middle School.”

Q: Did you think you would be voted for this seat?

A:”Although I was nervous, I hoped and had faith in my supporters and campaign.”

Thank you to all the students of Walter Reed Middle School for supporting and help paste the posters on the walls!!! We hope to have a great 2015-2016 year! GO REED!;)

– Ellie Kim’16 and Sion Yoo’16

Thank you to all students who participated this year in the Student Council Election process. Please find the election results below, congratulations to all who won. Ms. Bugyik and I look forward to a fun and productive school year working with all of you!

Hello New Teachers!

Many new teachers have joined Walter Reed for the 2015-2016 school year. Reed Review decided to interview a new teacher, Ms.Dagilis, on behalf of our own and the school’s knowledge to get to know this new English teacher better.

Introduce yourself and the classes/grades you teach.

I’m Ms.Dagilis and I teach 7th and 8th grade in the Humanities Academy.

What do you think of Walter Reed Middle School? Would you want to teach here for another year again?

I’m so glad I made the move over to Walter Reed because the teachers, students, and staff are all so welcoming and nice to a new kid on the block like myself! Also it is very close to my house so I can get here faster!

When did you start teaching?

I began teaching 12 years ago at an LAUSD school located in Koreatown. I still have friends from that first job that I keep in touch with today, so I feel pretty lucky about that.

Where did you go for middle school?

I grew up in New England, specifically Massachusetts. I went to a small middle school in a small town called Grafton. Our middle school had 5th and 6th grade downstairs and 7th and 8th grade upstairs.

Why did you decide to be a teacher at Reed MS?

I had met Ms.Gamba previously at one of my old schools. I liked the way she led her staff and the way she treated the students. I knew I would love to work for her again, so when there was an opening, I interviewed at Reed. It was a hard decision to leave my old school, but I am happy I decided to make the leap!

Tell us something interesting about yourself.

My favorite fun fact is that in college I was lucky enough to spend a semester in Europe. That’s not all though! Instead of dorms, the college had a real castle that we lived in. It had two moats, peacocks roaming around, and a tower. To this day, I can’t believe I lived in a castle!

We also decided to get fellow student and teacher comments about Ms.Dagilis:

“I think she’s excited to be at Reed. I’m excited for having her here. I think she’s funny, and I know that she doesn’t like rats.” – Ms.Federico, Librarian, ex-Humanities 7th/8th English Teacher

“In my opinion, Ms. Dagilis is a great teacher, because she’s very understanding and works very hard at teaching us.” – Artur Manasyan’18

“I think she cares about the students. She’s good at organizing the classrooms.” – Sophie Edwards’16

“She is funny… is really nice… she cares about her students’ education.” – Hayley Timsit’16 and Eleana Toscano’16

“She gets the students’ attention very easily.” – anonymous

If you see Ms. Dagilis around the school, make sure to say hi!

– Noorim Oh ‘16 and Eunice Choi ‘16

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Fall 2015

Transitioning to Middle School

When I was a sixth grader, I remember being excited about starting something new. It was going to be a whole new experience. I went to a fairly small elementary school, and I couldn’t wait to meet new people. However, on the first day of school, I was a bit intimidated when I only saw unfamiliar faces. The Reed community welcomed me, and I immediately felt that I belonged. The transition between elementary school and middle school is big, and the start of sixth grade can be a scary experience. The Reed Review decided to interview several sixth graders to see how they feel about Walter Reed, sixth grade, and middle school in general. — So Jun An’17

“Middle school is fun because of the multiple periods in the day” — Dean Kim’18

“I like being with multiple teachers a day. I am very happy with my elective, which is Choir. I love Walter Reed, and I’m going to stay at WRMS through 8th grade.” — Sofia Lanter’18

“The school is very big, but I like it a lot better!” — David’18

“Coming to Walter Reed was especially difficult for me because I came five weeks late. At first I was nervous. I wasn’t used to such a big campus. I should not have worried. My new classmates and teachers welcomed and accepted me almost immediately. For incoming students, time management is very important with homework. When you choose your middle school, don’t be afraid of a challenge. Good luck! — Tania Rambaldo’18

“When you start you might feel nervous but the teachers will guide you through the day. Be sure to organize and manage your time well.” —Daniel Billotti’18

“The first day I walked into my period 1 classroom. I didn’t know anyone. This was a little bit alarming but by the end of the day I knew many people.” — Zachary Driscoll’18

“One of the many things that encouraged me to come to Walter Reed was the music program. Right now I play the trumpet. At first I was awful. Now I can actually play a song. Walter Reed has been great.” — Daniela Biasini’18

“When I first came to Reed I was very worried, but my dad said I would like it a lot. I was super scared and lost, but my teachers told me where to go! Basically none of my friends from my other school were coming here. In the second week I made amazing friends. If you are scared, don’t be. You’ll make more friends and have lots of fun here.” – Lindsay Hebbe-Zubiate’18

“I felt super nervous on my first day of school. My stomach had butterflies and I was scared to meet my teachers. I went to my classes and my teachers were so nice. They care about us and want us to have the best of luck.” — Stephanie Guerra’18

“On your first day of Middle School 1,000 thoughts run through your head. However, you’re not alone, because every other 6th grader is probably feeling just the same. Just know you are not alone, and you are not the only one with that excited yet still nervous feeling in your stomach. Also, know it’s okay to be different. Don’t worry, Walter Reed is a very comfortable environment.” — Samantha Molinari’18

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October 2015

Milk and Bookies

Today, on October 2, 2015, the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) concluded the Milk and Bookies book drive. Milk and Bookies is a non-profit organization where students donate books to schools with under supplied libraries. This year Walter Reed donated its books to Langdon Elementary school. Our goal was to collect about 300 books, and we ended up collecting over 2,100 books! We passed our goal by 1,800 books and helped a school in need.

The National Junior Honor Society’s book drive was a great success! To help promote the book drive, Walter Reed also promised a cookie party to all of the donors. Every time a student donated 1-5 books, they would receive 1 ticket, allowing them to attend the cookie party. If they donated 6-10 books, they received 2 tickets, allowing them to invite a friend! Because of this, more than 500 tickets were distributed among the students over a course of 2 weeks.

Next week, the 6 officers of Walter Reed’s NJHS will be delivering the books to Langdon personally. Today, we helped hundreds of students. We hope that through our donations, other schools will participate in the Milk and Bookies book drive as well. If all schools were to donate books to those in need, imagine the impact it would have on the students attending these schools. Students from Langdon and other schools throughout Los Angeles would have a wider variety of books to choose from, thus, allowing them to expand their intellectual horizons.

National Junior Honor Society

Hello! We are your new 2015-2016 National Junior Honors Society Board. We are very excited to work with NJHS and the Walter Reed community. Our goals are to make an impact on the school and those in need of our help. We look forward to organizing student participation in projects that will improve our community. We encourage everyone to join us in our goal to help others.

Co-Presidents: Patrick Kim’16 and Sloan Pirie’16

Co-Vice Presidents: Isabel Sagheb’16 and Taka Khoo’16

Secretary: Sarah Jung’16

Treasurer: Miya Khoo’16

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May 22, 2015

Ancient Civilization Market Place

The Ancient Civilization Market at Reed was full of young students learning about early Greek and Roman culture. With the encouragement of their 6th grade history teachers, students created booths to show the early Greek and Roman way of life. Students dressed up as the characters that their booths required, then shared with each other their knowledge of the music, religion, politics and daily life of early Greece and Rome. Reed students should be proud to have such dedication to their learning.

-Elizabeth Lamb’17 and Tiifany Rodriguez’17

student comments: “ We created an ancient Greek food stand, explaining the different foods eaten by different classes. It was an interesting experience to learn about the different foods, and fun to put it together as a whole.” – Emilie Moore’17

“Our market stand created products to educate our customers about ancient music. I liked learning about ancient events and connecting them to modern day.” – Laine Katz-Vanzo’17

“We thought it would be fun to learn about the many gods of Mt. Olympus and the powers they had. Artemis is my favorite god because her past is very rough and hard. It was fun to make the spinning wheel for our booth.” – Nydaline Mendieta’17

“Going to the Hygiene Booth gave me a clear view of ancient medicine and the different remedies they used to help with medical problems. Based on what this booth was selling, the ancient Greeks used lots of different herbs as healing remedies. I also learned that symbols at modern-day hospitals and clinics originated from ancient Greek civilization. One example is the two snakes wrapped around a pole: in ancient times snakes were believed to remove illnesses.” –Avery Grove’17

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)

Through the creative leadership efforts of eighth grade student Laurent Chang and his seventh grade officers, Eileen Garcia, Miya Khoo, Taka Khoo, Kaelyn Park, and Ethan Shahine, Walter Reed Middle School recently founded the first West Coast middle school chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), a national student organization. The mission of FBLA is to bring business and education together in a positive working relationship through innovative leadership.

Hot on the heels of its inaugural event, Judge for a Day, and its second event, Lawyer for a Day, the Walter Reed FBLA chapter’s third sponsored event was the “Doctor For A Day” program. Funded by a grant from FBLA’s national organization and The Walt Disney Company, “Doctor For A Day” provides sixth, seventh and eighth grade students enrolled in the Long-Term English Learning (LTEL) program at Walter Reed a chance to connect with leaders engaged in a variety of medical and healthcare careers such as internal medical and surgery. The aim of FBLA is to give these students inspiration and a real goal to strive towards.

On April 29th, thirty students from the Long-Term English Learning (LTEL) program received a presentation from Karen Tsujimoto, M.D. and Kristine Khoo, N.P. During the presentation, the students learned about an assortment of careers in medicine, as well as the process of gaining admission to medical school, and the potential income opportunities of various medical fields. Hopefully this information will enable them to envision themselves as future medical or healthcare professionals.

In addition to the presentation, the students were treated to a live demonstration of how a stethoscope and a reflex hammer work. They even got to listen to each others’ heartbeat! A gift bag containing the stethoscope and the reflex hammer, along with a first aid kit, was provided to the students to take home.

The medical professionals themselves were of diverse backgrounds. This, in itself, provided motivation to the students to show them that a profession in medicine is an obtainable goal. For example, Kristine Khoo served as a candy striper during high school and learned first-hand about the practice of medicine and how a hospital works. She eventually became a nurse practitioner.

The students got to hear firsthand from practicing doctors and medical professionals about the importance of hard work, dedication, and positive role models. The experience also provided a memorable moment that will stay with the students and guide them on a journey to a successful career.

One of the most encouraging feedback was given by volunteer Stacie Yee, a partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Squire Patton Boggs: “Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to volunteer for the program today. [I] enjoyed the experience and had a wonderful time seeing the kids’ excitement and enthusiasm. Remember me for next year!”

– Michael Chang P’16

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Salad Day!

Salad Day was on Thursday February 26, 2015. The Environmental Science class harvested our organic vegetables including radishes, lettuce, cilantro, and cabbage. A few students helped wash and cut the vegetables. We added apples, and mixed all the ingredients together and put them into bowls. Then we added ranch and homemade vinegar dressing on top, and we all ate our salad together a few minutes before lunch. We will probably do this again soon if we continue to grow our organic vegetables! –

– Sierra Villa’17 and Emily Vazquez’17

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Harvard University Comes to Reed Middle School

Former Walter Reed and North Hollywood HGM scholar, Harvard University student Sally Na came to Reed to talk about her experiences at this world renowned school. Harvard University is a private liberal arts college and known for its history and traditions. It has 67 hundred students, and a variety of study abroad programs, so that students can look for a passion without struggling and becoming lost.

Yes, the academics are remarkable and prestigious, but as a middle school student, I wondered about the social life at Harvard. I wasn’t sure about the types of people that attended Harvard and if it was hard to find close friends out of 67 thousand people! As Ms. Na talked more about the academics, she slowly moved in to the social life aspect, and she coved the things that I wanted to know. Indeed, there are people who are mean and slightly snobby, but those types of people are to be seen wherever you go. Due to Harvard’s residential life program, it is quite easy to make friends. Almost 91% of Harvard students live on campus, and in freshman year, it is required for a student to live in a Harvard dorm. After the acceptance letters are sent out, you describe little tiny things and quirks about yourself, so that Harvard dorm committee can pair you up with your unique match. Ms. Na got people from all sides of the world, a Korean student and even a student from Turkey!

There are also an array of clubs that you can join and lots of internships. I was also worried about what would happen after you attend Harvard. How do you get a job? What do you after college? My worries were once again put away by the explanations. Harvard helps build connections with people outside of the “Harvard bubble” so that you can join a company or a person without having to go through the struggle with finding your perfect work place after college. You already have one in mind when attending Harvard.

The biggest question for me was financial aid, but once again, Ms. Na explained to us about the generous financial aid program. Harvard is “need blind” and “need based”, basically saying that they look at your needs not your achievements after you are accepted. Harvard has one of the most generous financial aid programs in the world, and almost 70% of the students are on this financial aid system. The main message that I learned was, “Do not be afraid of the price tag!” Harvard even has scholarships within the school for study abroad programs, or even programs that you make up yourself!

Overall, I was really happy that I got to attend this presentation, and I learned a lot about the transitions of being a Walter Reed student to a college student. It helped me learn more about Harvard then just its big name. But most of all, this presentation has got me thinking about my future and my plans.

– Hayeon Kayla Lee’15

Reed Alumni Sally Na with Ms Mesino’s 6th grade class. Ms. Mesino’s students had many, many questions for Ms. Na regarding college life opportunities, both academic and social! Ms. Na also visited earlier in the day with Reed 8th grade students. Thank you Ms. Na for your generosity to Reed students!

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Turkey Bowl

On the Friday before the Thanksgiving break, the annual Walter Reed Turkey Bowl takes place! Students of all ages band together and create their ultimate teams. Teachers and faculty from around the school volunteer to be coaches for the groups. During lunch time, the boys and girls meet with their coach and train for the big game. Students learn valuable information about the sport that they wouldn’t find anywhere else. As student Adam Daneshrad’15 says, “I play a lot of Madden Football on my Xbox and I thought I was well equipped, but after being on a team for the Turkey Bowl, the amount of knowledge blew me out of the water”. For the coaches, it is a great experience to interact with other students and to really give it their all. Our dean and coach, Mr. Torres, states “I’ve always liked coaching. I’ve been coaching sports even before I’ve been teaching. Sports is what I do”. The Turkey Bowl is also a great experience for kids to make new connections. Mr. P, another coach, mentions how his team interacts with each other: “It’s a good set of boys and girls. They work well together and we are going to crush the opponents!”. Over all, the Walter Reed Turkey Bowl is a highly anticipated event that gets the whole school on their feet!

– Andrew Charroux’15 and Kai Ferragallo- Hawkins’15

It’s really fun to go to the Turkey Bowl with your friends and root for your favorite team. You really get into it and have a blast. – Jasmine Leib’15

Each grade level has a different period to play their football game. It is a lot of fun to sit with your friends and cheer on the players. – Maya Hernandez’15

Turkey Bowl Results:

6th Grade winning coach: Mr. Demski

“Winning is the best thing ever. We won through hard work and determination. Torres’s team played hard, but we played harder.” –Mr. Demski, Title 1 Coordinator

“I am proud of both teams for playing hard and playing fair. Both teams deserved to win.” –Mr Gomez, 7th & 8th Grade Science Teacher

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Spirit Week

Spirit week began with a day to show how fun the students of Reed can be, Crazy Hair Day. As we walked through the school, and saw the vibrant display of different hair styles, we couldn’t help but feel that the day was a success. From spray painted hair to pencil-filled styles, students at Reed went beyond the expectations of participation and spirit.

– Andrew Charroux’15 and Ryan Abrams’15

Day Three of Spirit Week was Crazy Hat Day. Some kids at Reed went all out on the hats they wore. We saw kids with super funny, colorful, crazy head gear! But don’t think it’s only the kids at Reed that wear crazy hats, teachers do too!

– Sol Madar ’15 Moksha Narayandas ‘15

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Mr. Hanson’s Class Delivers

Holiday poems “home delivered” by Mr. Hanson’s students:

This project started as an in-class assignment. We recited the poems in class. Then our teacher came up with the idea to go around to the 6th grade classrooms to recite the poems. My favorite poem was “Stairways” by Bennet Cerf, because it makes no sense and is fun to recite. It was fun to go around classrooms and read poems to people we usually wouldn’t. We learned and memorized a lot of poems through this assignment, and will remember them for the rest of our lives.

– Jack Chaney’16, Sofia Equizabel’16

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Breakfast in the Classroom

Recently, Walter Reed began the breakfast in the class room program. Breakfast in the class room is a new system in which students are given a breakfast at the beginning of period 1. This way, no student has to go through the school day without the proper nutrients. To see how this new program is going, we gave students a survey to fill out and return. We asked three different questions about their experience with breakfast in the class room. Thank you very much to the following teachers who let their class be surveyed: Ms. Scorzelli, Ms. Jung, Mr. Piedrahita, Ms. Ruano, Mr. Gavia, Mr. Chidgey, Ms. Washington, Ms. Mesino, Mr. Paisano, Ms. Miller , Ms. Szymanski, Ms. Siminski, Ms. Krivda, Ms. Adkins, Mr. Wolfgram, Ms. Vasquez, Ms. Hendricks, Ms. Tang, Ms. Mintz, Ms. Hermes, Ms. Mansfield, Ms. John, Ms. Rigsby, Mr. Cranow, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Ing, Ms. Bugyik, Ms. Choi, Ms. Enriquez, Ms. Smith, Ms. Walker, and Mr. Gomez.

We first asked students how they spend their time during breakfast. Some of the responses we got were going over previous lessons, passing out papers, talking to friends, playing cards or board games, watching educational videos, getting caught up with homework, reading books, and listening to the teacher’s stories. We felt that after reading the surveys, students use their free time to get ready for the day ahead and spend time with their friends. First period is 77 minutes long, 22 minutes longer than a normal class, which gives students a good amount of time to eat their food and transition into the school day.

The second question on the survey was regarding student’s favorite meal served. The most popular foods mentioned on the survey results were coffee cake (331) and yogurt and granola (111). Other foods mentioned were pizza pockets (72), cereal (56), French toast/pancakes (37), orange juice (32), cracker with sugar and cinnamon (17), omelet sandwich (16), breakfast burrito (15), fruit (12), oatmeal cookies (9), and quesadilla (7). 129 students also said that they did not have a favorite meal. After seeing the high demand for some of the items, we believe coffee cake and yogurt with granola should be served more often.

The third, and final question, was asking for suggestions to the breakfast. The most popular foods mentioned were pancakes with syrup (169) and coffee cake (118). Some other suggestions were apple juice (54), orange juice (51), breakfast burrito (45), waffles (34), fruit (33), chocolate milk (30), French toast (21), and cinnamon rolls (12). Obviously, this new program could use some additions, but we believe that it is a successful system that is allowing students to get the food they need.

Q & A w/ Ms. Marcy Lopez, Reed Cafeteria Manager:

Do you think that this program is successful?

Yes, because no child goes hungry, fewer kids get sick, and it saves [our] jobs.

What do you think is the most popular meal?

Coffee Cake. For years, coffee cake has been the favorite meal.

If you could make any changes what would it be?

The food department has a nutritionist who plans the meals out for each day. I can’t make any changes.

If you could, what would you add/ take off?

I would take away the egg sandwiches, raisins, and cranberries. I would add more fruit and more homemade foods.

Mr Bobrosky’s Team

Have you ever wondered who takes care of all those books in the Library? Mr. Bobrosky’s team of students work together in the Library to assist students with books, research, and circulation. Believe it or not, it takes time and effort to shelve these books and to maintain neatness in the Library. As a TA (Teacher Assistant), Library Practice is my enrichment class. With four other students, I control the circulation desk, making sure that every book is turned in on its proper due date and placed on the shelving cart.

Never have I been so connected with books and research in my life. Every day, I see new books sitting on the shelf, new genres waiting to be explored . . . The Library is always teeming with knowledge. Being a TA also allows me to catch a sneak peak at sequels. The Percy Jackson series, Undivided, The Book Thief, you name it! – The Library has books for every age, level, and interest.

Andrew Bricklin, who is not only a TA in the Library but also my friend, gave me his opinion regarding his experience: “Library Practice is a complex and interesting course that provides skills that will benefit me throughout my educational life.”

Apart from controlling and cleaning the Library, a few other responsibilities lay in the hands of the Library TAs. As part of our daily routine, we are expected to complete assignments and conduct research about specific topics. From exploring the online catalog to finding articles in the index of a reference book, the first year as a Library TA was dynamic and educational. Together, Mr. Bobrosky and my classmates in Library Practice form a small community of friends. We share common interests and enjoy reading and learning from books. Simply drop by with your friends, and you will be amazed by the amount of information you can find snuggled between the wooden shelves of the Walter Reed Middle School Library. And if you have any questions, feel free to contact the TAs. We are always ready to help you out in any way we can!

Mark Blekherman’15

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Model UN at Reed

Model UN just wrapped with another successful summit! Over 800 California students attended the summit at the Sheraton LAX. Next year’s Secretary General was elected from Reed’s home delegation, the East Valley YMCA. Thank you to all the Reed candidates who ran for office, who stepped up to the challenge of appointed leadership. Whether you were elected/appointed or not, we are very proud of all of you for stepping outside of your comfort zones and challenging yourself to commit yourself to something bigger than yourselves. – Oscar Lunzilla, Program Director Youth Development, East Valley YMCA Model United Nations

“When I first heard about the Model UN program I completely passed it by. When my 6th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Helverson, was explaining what it was to the class, I didn’t want anything to do with it, especially because I thought it was something that only “nerds” did. I got home that day and threw the flyer that was passed out onto my kitchen table and my mom picked it up. “Wow, this sounds interesting!” She exclaimed, which wasn’t really surprising since everything “sounds interesting” to my mom. We started to talk about it and my mom and dad both agreed that it would help my speech skills in the long run. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it, but I knew that my parents were right, so I signed up for it. I immediately fell in love with it at the first meeting. Even though I was a little shy in the 6th grade, I knew that was soon to change. My first year doing the program I just observed and raised my hand as little as possible, but as time went on from being a 6th grader to a 7th grader, I began to speak a lot more in school sessions and even at Camp Bob and the Summit. When I did, I realized that my experience was so much more fun than when I was shy and didn’t speak. At the end of my 7th grade year, the lead advisor of the MUN program, Casey Banks, approached me and told me that I should run for delegation president the following year. I wasn’t sure about it, then came the speech day. I told my dad that I didn’t really want to run, but my dad really wanted me to. So, reluctantly, I wrote a little speech and presented it in front of my MUN peers. I was nervous, but with enough support I was elected as the East Valley Delegation President of 2014-2015. My 8th grade year was by far the best. I made so many new friends, not only from East Valley, but from delegations all over California. I spoke out whenever I had a chance, and even had a few resolutions passed from my committee. Being the Delegation president was fun too, especially because 6th graders would often come to me and ask questions, and I love being a leader. Also, representing a country really flexed my debate skills as well, because you have to speak on behalf of a whole country whether you agree with your country’s opinion/beliefs or not, and it could give you a whole new perspective on things. Model UN taught me how to be a better public speaker, and was a great way for me to make friends that didn’t go to my school. I encourage anyone, any grade, to join the program because I’m not exaggerating a bit when I say that it changed my life. And if you do join, make sure to speak as much as you can, talk to people from other delegations and never be afraid to defend your position!” – Cade Johnson’16 (Delegation President)

“I participated in Model United Nations all three years of middle school, and I can say without any exaggeration that it changed my life completely. My brother had done the program and I went to camp with the YMCA, so I knew how MUN worked and many of the program’s advisors before I even started. But I had no idea the extent to which I would love the program. I found public speaking exhilarating, and nothing compared to standing up for what you believe in. In my life until MUN, I had no outlet for my passion, and never felt like my ideas were ever important. In MUN, I found people who were not just willing to listen to me, but enthusiastic about hearing what I had to say. That was overwhelming to me. No one had ever cared in that way, and I had never been in a situation where I felt like I could be me without judgment. For the first two years, I tried hard to capture the opinions of my designated nations. I was always active in my committees, first in the Economic and Social Council and then in the General Assembly. But I was not an extraordinary delegate by any means, no matter how I tried. But this year, I decided to become more involved than I ever was. So, I thought, the first logical step in that direction was to run for office. I ended up running for President of Security Council, and I won. It was a lot of hard work, but I felt so proud and satisfied with my work. It was completely worth it. This year, I saw kids who didn’t ever believe in themselves speak in front of hundreds of people. I listened to people who never thought they would matter, like I had all those years ago in sixth grade. I saw children discuss things that adults couldn’t handle, and come up with solutions to problems that were thought to be unsolvable. Grown-ups tell me that my generation is lost, and that we can’t do anything important. But I think spending a day at the Model United Nations would change their minds, like it changed mine.” – Morgan Wespiser ’15 (President of the Security Council)

“One of the reasons I wanted to come to Walter Reed was because of the Model United Nations program. The great thing about Reed is that it has so many amazing clubs. There’s Math Counts, Theatre, and of course, Model United Nations. I was excited because I was very interested in world politics and geography. When I joined Model UN, I expected a modest program with a few people like me. Instead, I was quickly pulled into a world where fellow students represent the countries of the world. As someone who likes debates and speaking in front of people, I realized this was the perfect program for me. My first year at Model United Nations (or MUN as it’s more commonly known) was inspirational. I represented Canada, a nation that doesn’t really have many problems. I learned later that nations that had more major issues were better and more fun to represent. The next year, or 7th grade, was a lot more fun. I represented Libya, which had a LOT more problems than Canada. Not only was Libya very interesting to speak on behalf of, but I mustered the courage to run for a position: General Assembly President. I campaigned, made a speech in front of a 150 students, and won! I enjoyed being GA President (I wielded my own gavel!) so much that this I decided to run for another position: Undersecretary-General of the World Health Organization. I discovered how vulnerable the world would be if a pandemic broke out. I assisted my fellow delegates in creating a resolution to eradicate malaria in Nigeria. This past year as Undersecretary-General was really engaging. One of the greatest things about MUN is that you meet so many new people. Over 850 kids from all over California got together and met at the annual MUN Summit. I brainstormed solutions with kids from San Francisco and rubbed elbows with youngsters from San Diego. All of my friends outside of my academy here at Reed came from Model United Nations. This program has opened the world for me, and made me want to grow up to be in international relations. I will always treasure the gavels I was given. I’m sad that it’s my last year at Walter Reed and at MUN, but I know from seeing my fellow 6th and 7th grade delegates that I’m leaving the program in good hands.” – Leo Viscomi’15 (Undersecretary-General of the World Health Organization)

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NJHS Toys For Tots & Holiday Cards Service Projects

This year the National Junior Honors Society (NJHS) put together a “Toys for Tots” toy drive, hoping to make another child’s Christmas a little bit brighter. All the NJHS members were assigned a classroom to collect toys. By the end of the donations, we collected 126 toys, which we delivered to the North Hollywood Fire Station.

We also were all given a day to work at our holiday card station. 193 holiday cards were created and delivered to the Sherman Oaks Senior Center at Van Nuys Sherman Oaks Park.

For me, it was another life changing experience. My classroom did not seem to donate as many toys as we would have liked, so I took action. I went around school asking my friends and their parents to donate whatever they could. Monday, December 15th, I had collected 12 toys. I would like to say thank you to everyone who donated, every toy counts. Everyone’s generosity will make the holidays very special for people in our neighborhood.

We realize that there could be more done than just fundraising for children. In fact, we can never honor enough our army, navy, and marine troops. These men and woman fight for our freedom every day, and we will show our gratitude to them with a future fundraiser.

– Nathan Koenig’15

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Leadership School Field Trip

Off for a three day overnight field trip to Leadership School at Camp Pendleton, Commander Gallagher’s cadets wait patiently Friday morning, December 12th, for their transport to arrive at Reed. According to Cadet Harout Danielyan’15, Leadership School teaches cadets who are rising through the ranks how best to care and support positive, healthy behavior in the younger cadets, how to enforce structure in a positive way without being “mean”.

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Yearbook Club

The Yearbook is coming, everyone! On Wednesdays the Yearbook Design Lab Club has meetings; they plan the Walter Reed Middle School Yearbook for the year. On the 3rd of December, the Yearbook Management Team planned what will be on each page. They also decided the theme of the yearbook in a previous meeting. The Yearbook Club meets after school on Wednesdays 3:10-4:10 in room 184. With the help of Ms. Mintz as our advisor, I know that this years’ Yearbook will be great.

I enjoy spending time after school helping with the yearbook planning. After most of the people leave, the management team gets to chat and review what we discussed before. At Yearbook Design Lab meetings, everyone has a good time — there is lots to do between making banners, designing the cover, discussing what to take pictures of, and designing the yearbook pages. I am so glad I got the chance to be part of the Yearbook Design Lab meetings. Being my first year at Reed, it has helped me become comfortable at this school. The Yearbook Design Lab has given me a chance to express myself. Ms.Mintz gives us the chance to make the yearbook full of memories we want to see. I’m glad to be a part of such an wonderful project that helps me remember what an awesome time we have at Reed!

– Jasmine Alas-Castillo’17

Yearbook Club is very fun, it’s also a time you can socialize with others and still get all our work done.

– Raj Harji’17

I enjoy being in Yearbook for many reasons. It’s a chance for people from different grades to come together and create something wonderful. We can choose a design and take pictures, go to events, and many other things. It is really fun to meet on Wednesdays and discuss with Ms. Mintz what we are going to do. I’m really glad I joined yearbook.

– Julia Kim’17

Being a part of the Yearbook Design Lab of Walter Reed Middle School is amazing. We get to take pictures of incredible things happening on campus, learn cool things about technology, and best of all, we have the privilege of making a book that represents the entire school. I’m really glad that I am a part of this magnificent project.

– Annie Son’17

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Rummage and Recycle

Walter Reed had a rummage and recycle event Friday, November 14th, to Sunday, November 16th. We were very happy to volunteer our time there. When we first arrived at the event there was not that much business. But, then people started pouring in and donating so much. There was a little bit of everything, but most people donated clothes. Some people were so generous that they donated almost ten bags of stuff! It was so fun and exciting that so many peole participated. The experience was very enjoyable and it felt good to know that we were helping out other peole.

–Alyssa Petach’17 and Kylene Lainez-Parks’17

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CAN-struction & Food Drive

What is a way to make donating fun for kids? You make it into a competition!

In the CAN-Struction Contest, sponsored by the National Junior Honors Society, your class builds a sculpture with the cans brought in from home. After the competition is over, all of the cans get donated to Valley Food Bank. All of the can-structions produced this year were creative, and showed the fun of the project. Hopefully, this can be a yearly tradition at Reed.

–Ryan Abrams’15

NJHS collected 650 cans of food this year, compared to last year’s collection of 110 cans. NJHS donations are way up! Valley Food Bank was very happy to receive the donations.This was the first NJHS service project for the year. Mission accomplished!

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Art of Peace Club Reunion

Author Jodi Wing (The Art of Social War published by HarperCollins) and Sylvia Perchuk (Teach the Children Peace Foundation) visited Reed during lunchtime November 12th to catch up with Ms. Wing’s Art of Peace Club alumni. More than 45 current Reed students participated in Ms. Wing’s after-school enrichment program at their respective LAUSD elementary schools. The Art of Peace Club teaches students aged 7 to 15 how to manage social conflict & competition online & offline, to exercise emotional fitness & safety, and to make winning choices.

“I had a lot of fun in the Art of Peace Club, especially when we did the role play. It helped me be a little more open to new people and things”. – Stella McFadden’16

“Art of Peace Club prepared me for the future. It taught me it is okay to be myself and that I should accept myself. I loved every minute I spent in the club and it has helped build who I am today” – Kaytlyn Rivas’15

“I’d like to thank Ms. Jodi for being so kind. She helped me think a lot of my future and what I want. I’m glad I met her.” – Jennifer Tejada’15

“Art of Peace Club has helped me with friendship.” – Giuliana Garcia’17

“With this club I found my inner peace.” – Emily Barajas’17

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Financial Literacy:

Beyond the Bell Field Trip to USC

On November 10th Reed students were invited to attend an event intended to teach financial literacy to youth at the USC Galen Center, sponsored by Banc of California in partnership with our Beyond the Bell after school program. Our P.E. teacher Ms Washington informed us of this opportunity, and encouraged us to fill out the permission slips, which were all that were required to go. Participants were treated to a USC women’s basketball game afterwards.

The opening speeches were given by Eric Holoman, the Director of the Banc of California and President of Magic Johnson Enterprises, and Steven Sugarman, the Director of the Banc of California. The speakers thanked sponsors, those present, and elected officials for serving their communities.

Then, former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke to students about his childhood struggles growing up in a poor community with a single mother. However, the importance his mother placed on education allowed him to persevere through his educational career, though he attended a school with a 75% drop-out rate and was eventually kicked out from the first high school he attended. Mayor Villaraigosa went on to graduate from UCLA, and became the first person of color in 133 years to become mayor of LA. He attributed his success not only to those that came before him who fought to make life easier for the next generation, but to his education, and encouraged students to set high goals for themselves.Before keynote speaker and former president Bill Clinton gave his speech, Denise Winston, a financial expert and author of multiple books teaching people how to manage their money, spoke about the difference between a need and a want, and possible sources of income for youth. She explained the concept of paying interest from a loan, and receiving interest from investments made and saving money in a bank. Finally, Bill Clinton, former president of the United States and founder of the Clinton Foundation spoke about the value of financial literacy, and the potential the students had as a group in talent and diversity. He spoke about the way his generation wants ours to pursue our dreams the way they did theirs, and how this cannot be done without knowing how to handle money. All in all, students took away from this experience knowledge on financial literacy, knowledge on the importance of handling money, and knowledge that the previous generation has faith in us to change society for the better.

– Tiffany Chang’15

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Reed Students Play With North Hollywood High Marching Band

On November 7, members of our Wind Ensemble (Reed’s highest level of music for winds/percussion instruments), were invited to play with the North Hollywood marching band for their football game against Arcadia High School. We learned their school’s cheers, and joined them in playing their pep songs (“Fishies, Go-go, Kick Off, etc.) to boost morale.

– Tiffany Chang’15

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Career Day

Children always wonder what they are going to become when they grow up, and our school’s Career Day on November 6th, 2014, helped us to know what we want to become when we grow up. We saw a variety of career ideas from adults willing to share with us. Among the variety of careers presented were law enforcement, chef, firefighter, cheerleader, veterinarian, paramedic, behavior specialist, attorney, actor, acting coach, cartoonist, computer engineer, computer programmer, artist, cake decorator, film maker, costume designer, real estate broker, martial arts instructor, aerospace engineer, respiratory therapist, writer, producer, journalist, professor, product development, funeral attendant, judge, psychologist, pilot, and art therapist. We have learned that all career fields require extensive education, and the more the better!

– Ruby Hong’15, Michelle Morlock’15, and Andrea Sandoval’15

A pilot named Toby Rower talked to the students in Ms. Wolfstein’s class about how he became a pilot. He told us that you need to use math when flying in the air. He has flown to almost every state. A chef named Karen Forsberg showed us how her passion for cooking food turned into a career. She learned how to make Alfredo Sauce from Alfredo himself.

– Andrew Blocher’15

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College Career Awareness Month

On October 24th the Counseling Department chose the following classrooms as winners for the “College Information” door decorating contest:

6th Grade: Ms. Sofio, Ms. Vazquez, and Ms. Adkins

7th Grade: Ms. Szymanski and Ms. Hermes

8th Grade: Ms. Ruano and Mr. Bobrosky

The winning classrooms earned donut parties!

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Is Cursive Writing A Lost Art?

Many people today debate over whether cursive is still necessary to be taught in class. In Ms. Mills class, they talk about this debatable topic. The class begins by reading two articles: Is It Time For Cursive To Die? by Lauren Tarshis and Why I Keep My Letters by Nina Sankovitch. From there, the students write about their experience on the subject. Students use their own opinions and evidence from the text to bolster their argument. In this reporter’s humble opinion, cursive is not a worth-while skill, due to the recent addition of technology to the classrooms. Who knows whether cursive will continue being used? The question is still up in the air, read on for some student opinions… – Ryan Abrams’15

” In my opinion, cursive should stay in use because it’s more efficient, a link to our past, and it is a way to show a person’s personal expression and substance.”- Kaia Ross’17

“I believe cursive should no longer be taught in the classroom… Many jobs don’t require you to know cursive. Cursive is taking classroom time away from basics such as reading and math. This limits a teacher’s time to prepare students for tests…Your time would be better spent learning skills that will be useful in your future development…I say in with the new and out with the old.” – Shanti Franzoni’17

“I believe that cursive should stay in the class. Cursive is faster, advances your skills in English, and has been used for centuries. Cursive is very important. Cursive is fast and it flows.” – Jasmine Orellana’17

“Schools have ;limited time, and don’t want to spend time teaching cursive when there are more important things to teach… goodbye cursive!”- Oran Shmoel’17

“Students should still keep on writing in cursive because if we forget about it, it is like forgetting our history. Schools should encourage students to use handwriting.” – Jasmine Orellana’17

“…Cursive is a way to write faster and neater because you don’t have to lift your pen off the page as often. Also, cursive is a link to the past, keeping our history and memories…” – Marcel Ruiz’17

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Buddy Club

Buddy Club is a fun student led group in which members of our class meet every Friday to eat lunch with the special education students in Ms. Adkin’s special education class. This program was started in 6th grade with the help of Ms. Shahine, and we continue to have lots of fun building memories and creating friendships. At these meetings we usually play soccer, tag, or musical chairs. If we decide to have the meetings inside, we play board games and Bingo. And on really special occasions, such as Halloween, we enjoy treats such as cupcakes and brownies! Most importantly, though, Buddy Club allows both groups to get to know each other, and look past superficial differences. Buddy Club taught me how to be accepting of and make friends with people from all walks of life, and brings out the best in every one of us. While it was unfortunate to have to say good-bye to our 8th grade buddies from last year, we were excited to meet the new 6th graders for this year (from both groups), and Buddy Club’s tradition remains strong!

– Tiffany Chang’15

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YS Football

Touchdown!!

On October 25, 2014 the after-school YS football team won 4th place out of 94 schools at a flag football tournament. “It felt amazing winning, I was so exited, ” commented Dylan Tangkom’17. The team practiced after school everyday out on the field. Congratulations to the football team: aftter all of their hard work, they deserved it!

– Jasmine Alas-Castillo’17

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Halloween Party

There was a special Halloween Bash at the end of Spirit Week on Friday, October 31st.

– Photos by Andrew Blocher’15

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October 2014

California Cadet Corps

The California Cadet Corps (CACC) is a student led, statewide leadership development program fully integrated into the school curriculum. Open to any Reed student as an enrichment class offering, Cadet Corps emphasizes academic success, public service, personal integrity, courage, citizenship, lifelong habits of responsible behavior, and appreciation for the rich heritage of America and California. Cadets participate in eight over-night field trips to various locations including military installations.

The Walter Reed Middle School Cadets are part of many Brigades, or groups, in the California Cadet Corps. The 7th Brigade includes over 250 cadets and is formed by many schools: Frost Middle School, Pacoima Middle School, Fulton Middle School, and North Valley Marine Institute(NVMI). Reed Middle School is just one of the many schools that make up our brigade. Cadets trips are a great way to make some friends from other schools.

There are a lot of benefits of being a cadet. Once you join the California Cadet Corps, you find that it is not that hard to be in it. Some of the benefits you will find are earning a rank or ribbons. You can earn a rank by taking a promotion test. The higher rank you are, the more opportunity you have of earning a higher leadership position. There are also ribbons: you can earn ribbons by going on the cadet field trips. The more ribbons you earn, the more decorated your uniform will be. Rank and ribbons are also a way of showing your progress and achievements in the Cadet Corps.

Many cadets find the field trips rather fun. The field trips are a whole weekend long. They will be fun as long as rules are followed, and most of the time the rules are easy to follow. At the end of the second day of the field trip the cadets relax, eat snacks, and watch a movie. The Awards Ceremony is on the last day, when the ribbons are awarded. Sometimes cadets get awarded a higher rank if they do well during the field trips. These are some of the benefits of being a cadet.

So far this year, we have gone on one field trip. It is called the Bivouac. A bivouac is like an outdoor camping trip. During the trip, cadets learned survival skills like learning how to read a compass and the proper ways to treat an injured person. Many Reed cadets went on this trip for the first time this year, and many of them really had a fun time!– Harout Danielyan’15

What Some Cadets Have to Say:

“I joined the Cadet Corps to learn discipline and leadership. I also want to become a good cadet leader. When I grow up I want to be a doctor. Learning discipline, respect, and leadership will help me get there. The cadet activities I like the best are the PT (Physical Training) and the Athletic Competition. My best teacher is Mr. Gallagher.– Jorge Cortes’15

“The reason I joined the Cadet Corps was because my friends were part of it. I wanted to join since the sixth grade. When I grow up I want to be a computer programmer. Cadets gives me the initiative to work hard. I like the activities we do. I enjoyed putting up a tent on our first fieldtrip.– Nicholas Di Prima’15

When I grow up I want to be in the Navy. But after I go into the Navy I would love to teach history. Being in the Cadets is going to help me achieve these goals because Cadets teaches me responsibility and leadership. Cadets helps the way I interact with other people. I like it when we go on trips because we get to interact with other schools, not just ours. I absolutely love the Cadet Corps.– Mackenzie Buote’16

When I grow up I want to be in a band. Being in the cadet program will help me achieve this dream because if the paparazzi tries to mess with me, I will know how to handle it. My favorite activity in the cadet program is when we play water games. The best field trip I had so far was the Athletic and Academic Competition. Mr. Gallagher is the best teacher ever, try not to get on his bad side.:)– Paris Nobles’15 I want to be a nurse when I grow up. In cadets we learn about CPR and how to take care of someone if they are hurt. That’s what I need to learn to become a nurse. I like that cadets work at the school for events. It was also fun to participate at the Athletic Competition and meet new cadets from other schools.– Bernice Trujillo’15

When I grow up I want to be in the military. Cadets helps me because I will already know what to expect.– Cindy Fuentes’15

I want to be a policeman when I grow up. The cadet program helps me with my grades. My favorite cadet activity was the Leadership Trip.– Luis Teodoro’15

When I grow up I want to be an airline designer/engineer. I really love airplanes. In cadets we do drills. Drills are important because they motivate you. Cadets inspires me to have a good future.– Grant Khrayan’15

When I grow up I want to be a doctor. Cadets helps me learn discipline to achieve my goals in life. One activity I like is taking classes to get higher up in Cadets. It is fun to earn ribbons and rise through the ranks.– Anthony Sales’15

I want to be a police officer when I grow up. One Cadet activity I like is having a leadership position. The excitement on the field trips makes them fun. – Jesus Sandoval’16

When I grow up I want to be a fashion designer! One thing I like about cadet class is that you learn something about life. This class is like having a job.– Sylvana Smith’16

I want to be in the NBA when I am older. The cadet program will help me do that because there is going to be a lot of exercise in the NBA, which is what we sometimes do here. I kind of like to do PT (Physical Training) because it helps me get more fit. The cadet trips are fun because they give you an experience of being a soldier, and we do things based on what soldiers do.– Narek Manachian’15

I want to be a professional football player. Cadets will help because it puts us through physical endurance, learning survival.¬ – Oscar Osorio’15

I want to be a NASA engineer. Being a cadet will help me be a NASA engineer because we learn discipline and you need to work hard. My favorite Cadet activity is “The Ketchup Bottle Game”. On fieldtrips we learn a lot of important stuff that will help us later in life. Mr. Gallagher is the best teacher. He always helps you improve.– Kevin Manzo’16

I want to be a businessman. Cadets will help me, because it teaches me respect and loyalty.– Genaro Diaz’15

When I grow up I want to be a scientist. I joined Cadets because I want to behave. What I enjoy about Cadets are the field trips.– Alexis Miranda’16

On field trips we eat very good food and play dodge ball. Major Gallagher has helped me be a better person by his way of discipline. When I get older I would like to be a marine. When I go to the marines, I can pull my service record and maintain my rank and/or position. It’s all good.– Izaiah Miranda’15

Cadets has changed my personality and myself in general. It has changed me physically and mentally. Cadets have given me the ability to increase my leadership skills which I know will benefit me when I am older. Cadets do fun physical activities. My favorite is marching. Mr. Gallagher is the one person that WILL change your way of being. If you join Cadets it will be a very good, life-changing experience.

– Jacqueline Nuno’15

I want to be a basketball player or a journalist. Mt favorite Cadet activity is taking charge of 2nd Platoon XD.– Jonathon Eaton’15 I joined Cadets in 6th grade because I wanted to feel the experience. I have learned from Mr. Gallagher’s words: “You treat others the way you want to be treated”.– Rudy Ramirez’15

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Into The Woods!

It’s closing night and the curtain is finally closed. There is a moment of silence, followed by a bunch of screams. After working on this show for months, we finally finished and all of our hard work paid off. We started auditions in October and as it got closer, we practiced even more. Though it was exhausting at some moments, I can say that the show was very fun and an amazing experience. And I can only hope that the people who saw the show enjoyed it as much as I did. – Ryan Abrams’17

Photos of Reed student musical production of Into the Woods

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November 2014

Author Visit

Neal Shusterman, New York Times bestselling author of books such as Unwind (the last book of the series, Undivided having just come out), Full Tilt, and Bruiser, visited our school on November 3rd to have a question and answer session with Reed students. Here are some of the questions students asked:

When did you decide to become a writer?

Shusterman’s path to becoming a writer started when his 3rd grade teacher, a grumpy lady who didn’t like him because of his inability to control his enthusiasm, assigned a Halloween creative story for homework. While she had only asked for three pages, he wrote five…only to get a D due to the conclusion of the story: the demise of his teacher that occurred due to the earth swallowing her up. From then on, the teacher, too tired to deal with him, sent him to the library when he was acting up. In fact, he was such a frequent visitor to the library that the librarian always prepared something for him to read, in levels of increasing difficulty. By the end of the year, although he had never before enjoyed reading, he had the best reading test score in his class, and by the end of elementary school, he had the best reading test score in his school. This honed his skill in language arts.

Then, when he was in high school, Shusterman wrote a story for his English class. The teacher was impressed, and sent it off to a writing contest. Even though Shusterman didn’t win, he was inspired by his teacher’s faith in him, and they worked out a deal: he would write her a story once a month for extra credit. This started his habit of writing. After he left school, he kept at this pursuit, and though he was rejected by many publishing companies twice, he eventually succeeded in getting his debut novel, The Shadow Club, published.

Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

Shusterman gets his inspiration everywhere, and in the most unlikely places. In fact, he found inspiration for one of his novels from a book talk he gave at a school. He was nearing the end of his allotted speaking time, and stopped asking for questions when a teacher stopped him. The teacher told Shusterman that a student had his hand up for the entire time without being called on. However, when looking towards the direction the teacher pointed, he didn’t see the student at first. Only when he had a double take did he realize that a student was sitting in the chair. This became the idea for The Schwa was Here, a novel about a boy who is “functionally invisible,” and therefore unnoticed by others unless they pay close attention.

– Tiffany Chang’15

Some comments from the audience:

From Mr. Shusterman I learned that inspiration can come from anywhere. It could come from looking at a tree, and then being inspired to write a book about a boy’s life at school. Also, I learned that he writes his books one chapter at a time. He does not write the entire book first, but each chapter, like it is its own story. Each chapter takes around 6 drafts.

– Josh Kim’15

It was enlivening to hear the words of Neal Shusterman and the rigorous process and deep thought required to publish a book as incredible as Unwind. Each and every word has so much effort, edits, and heart behind it that reading his books again after the presentation was an entirely new experience.

– Hangyul Lyna Kim’15

From the presentation I learned that many things are required to become a writer. Shusterman showed that not everything comes from inside your head, but also from things around you. Reading his books makes everything interesting. You want to keep on reading this amazing book in front of you.

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Ancient Egyptian Raps/Hip Hop

November 3, 2014

I am here in room 175 to watch Ms. Mill’s sixth graders bring Ancient Egypt to life with music. In either groups or individually, students are sharing their knowledge about ancient Egypt in a rap or hip hop song. This way, students are learning while having fun, and doing something new. This project is a great way of bring the arts to a classroom and getting kids to break out of their shells.

-Ryan Abrams’15

How did Ms. Mill’s students feel about the project? Some comments:

“I am proud to conquer my fear.” –Asia Severion’17

“I have learned that we can do some things as a team, even though we said we couldn’t.” –Cristian Solis’17

“In this project, I felt like imagination was key.” – Suren Juliano’17

“It was fun to work with different people & to come together & create such a cool project.” – Ava Madonna Gasca’17

“You can always perform, even if you are shy, as long as you believe in yourself.” -Jessica Cuevas’17

“I can’t believe I did it! It felt good working as a team.” – Genesis Solis’17

“Doing this rap project was really fun. But, I learned that teamwork can make you accomplish things that seem hard.”

– Jayden Marquez’17

“It was challenging, I panicked. Then, when the day came, I was nervous but ready to go. By the way, it is okay to be afraid!” – Mya Fares’17

“What couraged me was to

Make the history,

And rap of my life.

That’s when I knew I could

Make my mark.”

– Michella Mendola’17

A “rap” sampling from Room 175:

Pharaohs

– Oran Shmoel’17 and Kimberly Venegas’17

Pharaohs were like gods on earth

They’ve been training for it since birth

‘Been King Tut since ten years old

After life in tomb of gold

Pharaohs expected to act like

Superman

And fight rights like

George Washington

He had to make the laws

Egypt thought it had no flaws

Some pharaohs married their sisters

That’s how they became a mister

Pharaohs expected to act like

Superman

And fight nights like

George Washington

After they die they are the god of dead

Forever dead in their coffin bed

Later to be discovered

By historians that bothered

Pharaohs expected to act like

Superman

And fight rights like

George Washington

Social Organization Rap

– Angel Avila’17, Adam Gudino’17, and Ramon Gonzalez’17

You could be a slave in 3 different ways

Prisoners of war become slaves

Also you’ll have to pay your debt

Or be born into it I bet

Social Organization

How here’s more information

Unskilled workers were peasants

Who also worked for the government

They were commoners; They were laborers

But they still didn’t get any favors

Social Organization

Now here’s more information

The pharaoh was at the top

He made the slaves work a lot

He had lots of gold

And he was very bold

Social Organization

Now that’s all the information

We’re social organization

They had no teleportation

But they did have transportation

Rap Song

– Rosanne Perker’17, Ronald Duran’17, and Antony Rodrigue’17

Ramses was all about wa-a-a-a-a-r

Ramses was all about wa-a-a-a-a-r

So many monuments to honor him

To honor him

Yeah to honor him

Yeah to honor him

He started out when he was

Younger as an army commander

Later after Seti’s death he ruled

As a pharaoh and other said “uhoh”!

Now lets travel back in time

When he married his very first

Wife Her name was Nefetari

But she was not a Ferrari

Ramses was all about wa-a-a-a-a-r

Ramses was all about wa-a-a-a-a-r

So many monuments to honor him

To honor him

Yeah to honor him

Yeah to honor him

He was waaay

To responsible for many monuments

He was built a temple called

Ramesseum to honor him yeah

To honor him

About war yeah about war

About war

Fighting with the Hittites

Married the daughter conquered

lands for trade

Best preserved mummy

Had over 100 kids

Over 200 wives

He is Ramses

Peace Out!!

Rap Song

Hayden Henderson’17, Arianna Vega, and Chris Barandica’17

Hookworm, guinea worm, and shistome worm

They enter your body and inside they squirm,

They had lots of eye infections to prevent

Through infection they made inventions

Health and disease in Ancient Egypt,

They had lots of illnesses and cures to heal them

Their dental health was insecure,

They were sure they would find a cure

They cleaned their teeth with cloths and twigs

Their teeth were as worn down as a big pig

Health and disease in Ancient Egypt

They had lots of illnesses and cures to heal them

They had injuries that were physical

But they had awesome cures that were clinical

And magical, they had gods of Ancient Medicine

They were as bright as Thomas Edison

Health and disease in Ancient Egypt

They had lots of illnesses and cures to heal them

Stay healthy my friends, word!

“Anaconda” Mummy Parody

– Ava Gasca, Michelle Medrano’17, and Jayden Marquez’17

My mummy don’t want none unless you got tombs hun,

Going through the process of becoming a mummy,

My heart was my entire identity so they kept it in my body,

So I can some humanity

After that you have to preserve my body so I don’t get all stinky and rotty.